University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

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ALEXANDER  GOLDSTEIN 

MEMORIAL  FUND 


HOMftS 


EXTRA  EVENING  POST. 

Speech  Delivered  By 
HON.  THOMAS  HART  BENTON, 
At  Jefferson,  The  Capital  of  Missouri, 
On  the  26*h  May,  1849 


EXTRA    EVENING    POST. 


SPEECH   DELIVERED   BY 

HON.  THOMAS  HART  BENTON, 

AT   JEFFERSON,    THE    CAPITOL   OF    MISSOURI, 


The  following  speech  was  delivered  by  Senator 
Benton,  at  Jefferson,  the  Capitol  of  Missouri,  on  the 
26th  May  last.  The  occasion  for  its  delivery,  and  the 
purpose  of  its  distinguished  author,  we  need  not  de 
tail,  for  they  are  fully  set  forth  in  the  speech  itself.  - 

In  laying  this  effort  of  Senator  Benton  before  our 
readers,  in  a  shape  convenient  for  perusal  and  preser 
vation,  we  feel  called  upon  to  direct  public  attention 
to  some  of  its  prominent  features. 

It  is  made  clear  in  this  speech,  if  there  had  been 
any  doubt  before  on  the  subject,  that  not  only  was 
the  right  of  the  federal  government  under  the  consti 
tution  to  prohibit  slavery  in  its  territories,  even  in 
those  where  it  already  existed,  regarded  by  the  early 
statesmen  of  the  south  as  undeniable,  but  that  even 
the  prominent  champions  <  f  the  present  extreme  south 
ern  doctrine,  have  once  held  that  opinion.  That  all 
Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  including  the  members  from  the 
slave  states — including  even  Mr.  Calhoun — held  that 
Congress  had  authority,  under  the  federal  com  act, 
to  abolish  slavery  in  Louisiana,  no  man  can  doubt 
who  has  read  the  analysis  which  Mr  Bentoa  gives  of 
the  evidence  OD  this  subject,  and  of  the  series  of  misre- 
collections,  mi^-takes,  and  transpositions  of  events  by 
which  Mr.  Calhoun  has  attempted  to  avoid  the  charge. 
Of  course,  that  gentleman  is  made  to  figure  among 
the  early  abolitionists  by  his  relentless  adversary, 
who  shows  him  no  quarter,  and  holds  him  up  as  a 
man  to  whom,  whatever  may  be  his  present  views, 
the  anti-slavery  party,  if  they  regarded  only  his  an 
cient  services,  might  be  almost  moved  to  erect  a  sta 
tue.  The  truth  is  manifest,  that  the  doctrines  which 
the.  South  Carolina  senator  now  labors  to  establish, 
and  which  have  been  adopted  by  the  Virginia  legisla 
ture,  are  almost  as  new  as  the  last  new  novel.  They 
are  the  product  of  a  mind  which  has  wandered  from 
subtlety  to  sub  lety  until  it  has  entirely  lose  sight,  of 
the  plain  practical  sense  which  guided  the  first  inter 
preters  of  the  constitution. 

One  of  the  ablest  passages  in  the  speech  is  Mr. 
Bentou's  examination  of  this  doctrine  that  the  slave 
holder  has  a  right  to  take  his  property  with  him  in 


emigrating  to  the  territories.  It  is  an  admirable  ex 
ample  of  the  superiority  of  good  sense  to  mere  inge 
nuity,  and  of  the  ease  with  which  a  strong  mind  tears 
in  pieces  a  showy  plausibility. 

If  any  thing  could  add  value  and  weight  to  an  ar 
gument  so  irresistible,  it  is  that  it  is  the  argument  of 
a  southern  man,  of  the  representative  of  a  slave  state, 
of  one  who  is  himself  a  slaveholder,  and  who,  doubt 
less,  expresses  opinions  shared  with  him  by  numbers 
of  the  more  unprejudiced  and  liberal-minded  of  that 
class.  If  this  does  not  give  the  argument  additional 
weight,  it  adds  greatly  to  its  importance.  It  shows 
the  existence  in  that  quarter  of  a  spirit  of  candid 
dealing,  of  sincere  respect  for  the  constitution,  and  of 
regard  for  the  welfare  of  the  new  communities  to  be 
founded  on  the  Pacific,  to  which  we  may  safely  look 
for  the  wise  and  pacific  settlement  of  this  fierce  con 
troversy. 

In  reading  this  speech,  however,  we  have  been 
tempted  to  regret  that  Mr.  Benton  has  not  gone  yet 
further,  so  far  at  least  as  to  admit  the  expediency  of 
prohibiting  slavery  in  the  territories.  Be  holds  that 
Congress  has  a  right  to  enforce  such  a  prohibition  ; 
he  is  against  slavery,  he  tells  us  ;  he  would  resist  its 
introduction  into  California  and  New  Mexico  ;  the 
ordinance  of  1787  was  a  noble  and  a  wise  ordinance 
in  his  view,  and  the  same  policy  which  we  then  adopted 
in  regard  to  the  Northwestern  Territory  ought,  he 
thinks,  to  be  pursued  in  the  government  of  the 
country  acquired  from  Mexico,  fie  believes,  how 
ever,  the  express  prohibition  of  slavery  in  these 
provinces  to  be  necessary  ,an  since  slavery  does  not  now 
exist  there,  and  cannot  be  introduced  but  by  act 
of  Congress,  and  he  would  not  vote  for  a  regulation 
which  he  thought  to  be  simply  superfluous. 

But  is  a  law  unnecessary,  we  should  ask  Mr.  Ben- 
ton,  the  object  of  which  is  to  end  an  angry  contro 
versy  1  He  complains  of  the  agitation  of  this  ques 
tion  as  disquieting  the  Union.  The  prohibition  of 
slavery  by  Congress  would  effectually  compose  the 
agitation  When  opinions  are  divided  in  regard  to 
a  point  of  existing  law,  declaratory  statutes  are  often 


2 


passed  by  a  legislature.  On  ibis  question  of  the 
right  to  hold  slaves  in  New  Mexico,  opinions  are 
divided — not  the  opinions  of  shallow  politicians 
merely,  but  the  opinions  of  men  who  are  looked  up 
to  as  expositors  of  the  constitution ;  the  opinions  of 
able  and  learned  jurists.  Can  any  man  say  how  the 
question  would  be  decided  if  it  were  to  be  brought 
before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  T  Mr. 
Benton  may  tell  us  how  it  ought  to  be  decided ; 
but  can  he  give  us  any  guarranty  that  his  views 
would  be  adopted  by  the  court  1  Under  such  cir 
cumstances,  a  formal  assertion  of  the  right  of  Congress 
over  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  a 
declaration  that  the  institution  is  unlawful  within 
their  limits,  seems  to  us  as  far  from  superfluous  and 
unnecessary  as  we  can  well  imagine. 

If  the  politicians  and  public  men,  and  legislatures 
of  the  southern  states,  were  all  of  the  same  opinion  as 
Mr.  Benton,  there  would  be  no  occasion  for  the  exer 
cise  of  this  right.  It  would  then  be  acknowledged 
that  slavery  has  not,  and  cannot  have  a  legal  exist 
ence  in  the  n«w  territories,  and  all  public  authorities, 
courts  of  justice  and  individuals,  would  govern  them 


selves  accordingly.  To  such  a  state  of  things,  Mr. 
Benton's  notion  of  the  inutility  of  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  territories  is  perfectly  well  suited.  Bui 
as  long  as  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  territories  ig 
asserted  by  a  powerful  party,  holding  an  influence 
mighty  beyond  its  actual  numbers,  and  numerously 
represented  on  the  Supreme  Bench  of  the  United 
States,  it  is  very  unsafe  to  leave  the  question  as  it 
now  stands  without  any  declaration  of  Congress  on 
the  subject. 

Mr.  Benton's  argument,  however,  ia  well  calcula 
ted  for  effect  at  the  south.  He  tells  the  slaveholders 
that  they  cannot  and  ought  not  to  resist  the  exclusion 
of  slavery  from  the  new  territories ;  that  its  introduc 
tion  would  be  a  grievous  wrong,  which  Congress  baa 
a  right  to  prohibit,  and  that  it  is  folly  to  agitate  the 
question,  with  Kny  hope  of  being  able  to  propagate 
slavery  in  that  quarter,  inasmuch  as  slavery  is  for 
bidden  by  the  present  laws  of  those  provinces,  which 
are  in  force  until  repealed  by  Congress.  Those  who 
entertain  these  views  certainly  cannot  make  any 
strong  opposition  to  the  i  assage  of  a  law  expressly 
enforcing  the  exclusion  of  slavery. 


JEFFERSON  CITY,  May  26, 1849. 

CITIZENS!  I  have  received  certain  resolutions 
from  the  General  Assembly  of  Missouri,  denying  the 
right  of  Congress  to  legislate  upon  the  subject  of 
slavery  in  territories — asserting  the  right  of  the  citi 
zens  of  every  state  to  remove  to  the  territories,  ac 
quired  by  the  blood  and  treasure  of  the  whole  Union, 
with  i  heir  property— declaring  it  to  be  an  insult  to 
the  states  to  exclude  any  of  iheir  citizens  from  so  re 
moving  aud  settling  with  their  property — alleging 
such  insult  to  be  the  cause  of  alienation  among  the 
states,  and  ultimately  of  disunion  ;  and  instructing 
the  senators  of  the  state,  and  requesting  its  repre 
sentatives  to  vote  in  conformity  to  the  resolves  so 
adopted. 

These  instructions,  of  which  I  now  only  give  the 
substance,  were  adopted  by  the  General  Assembly 
after  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  and  after  the  time 
that  it  must  have  beer*  believed  that  the  subject  to 
which  they  refer  had  been  disposed  of  in  Congress. 
and  while  other  resolutions  incompatible  with  them 
had  been  given  by  the  previous  General  Assembly, 
and  had  been  complied  with  by  me,  and  were  still  on 
hand.  They  are  a  mere  copy  of  the  Calhoun  resolu 
tions  offered  in  the  Senate  in  February,  1847,  de 
nounced  by  me  at  the  time  as  a  fire  brand,  intended 
for  electioneering  and  disunion  purposes,  aud  aban 
doned  by  him  after  their  introduction,  without  ever 
calling  a  vote  upon  them,  for  a  reason  which  will  be 
hereafter  shown.  I  produce  them  in  order  to  justify 
the  character  1  give  of  them,  and  to  show  them  to  be 
the  original  of  those  which  I  have  received  from  the 
General  Assembly  of  Missouri. 

THE    CALHOUN   RESOLUTIONS. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  territories  of  the  United 
States  belong  to  the  several  states  composing  th'S 
Union,  and  are  held  by  them  as  their  joint  aud  com 
mon  property 

"  Resolved,  That  Congress,  as  the  joint  agent  and 
representatives  of  the  states  of  this  Union,  has  no 
right  to  make  any  law,  or  do  any  act  whatever  that 


shall,  directly  or  by  its  effects,  make  any  discrimina 
tion  between  the  states  of  this  Union,  by  which  any 
of  them  shall  be  deprived  of  its  full  and  equal  right  in 
any  territory  of  the  United  States  acquired  or  to  be 
acquired. 

*•  hiesolved,  That  the  enactment  of  any  law  which 
should  directly  or  by  its  effects,  deprive  the  citizens 
of  any  of  the  states  of  this  Union  from  emigrating 
with  their  property  into  any  of  the  territories  of  the 
United  States,  will  make  such  discrimination,  and 
would,  therefore,  be  a.  violation  of  the  constitution 
and  the  rights  of  the  states  from  which  s-ueh  citizens 
emigrated,  and  in  derogation  of  that  perfect  equality 
which  belongs  to  them  as  members  of  the  Union,  and 
would  tend  directly  to  subvert  the  Union  itself. 

"  Resolved,  That  as  a  fundamental  principle  in  our 

Solitical  creed,  a  people  in  forming  a  constitution, 
ave  the  unconditional  right  to  form  and  adopt  the 
government  which  they  may  think  best  calculated  to 
secure  liberty,  prosperity  and  happiness ;  and  that, 
in  conformity  thereto,  no  other  condition  is  imposed 
by  the  federal  constitution  on  a  state,  in  order  to  her 
admission  into  this  Union,  except  that  its  constitution 
be  republican,  and  that  the  imposition  of  any  other 
by  Congress  would  not  only  be  in  violation  of  the  con 
stitution,  but  in  direct  conflict  with  the  principle  on 
which  our  political  system  rests  " 

These  resolutions  were  bronght  into  the  Senate, 
February  19,  1847,  and  are  the  prototype  of  those 
sent  mo  by  the  Gent-nil  Assembly  of  Missouri.  1  nee 
no  diiferencc  in  them  but  in  the  time  contemplated  for 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union  — Mr.  Calhoun's  tending 
"direfUy*'  and  those  of  Missouri  "  ultimately  "  to 
that  point  In  other  respects  they  are  identical,  and 
this  d.fference  is  not.  material,  as  (he  Missouri  rt-.--o,u- 
tiond  pledge  the  state  to  "cooperate"  with  other 
slaveholdiug  states,  and  therefore  to  follow  their  Uuil, 
which  may  be  directly,  as  the  Accomac  resolutions 
vouch  in  <r  to  be  the  voice  of  the  south,  call  fur  a  stale 
Convention,  as  soon  as  a  bill  can  be  passed  for  the  pur 
pose,  to  organize  the  mode  of  action.  1  consider  the 


Calhoun  resolutions  as  the  parent  of  those  adopted  by 
our  Legislature,  and  entitled  to  the  first  attention  j 
and  in  that  point  of  view,  shall  speak  to  them  first : 
and  begin  with  an  argument  against  it  derived  from 
the  conduct  of  that  gentleman  himself. 

In  the  year  1S20,  Mr.  Calhoun  was  a  member  of 
Mr  Monroe's  cabinet,  and  as  such  was  required,  by 
the  President,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the  cabi 
net,  to  give  his  opinion  in  writing,  to  be  filed  in  the 
department  of  State,  on  the  question  of  the  power  ot 
Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  territories,  and  on 
the  constitutionality  of  the  8th  section  of  the  act  for 
the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union,  and  which 
section  applied  the  anti-slavery  clause  of  the  Or 
dinance  of  1787,  to  more  than  half  of  the  whole  Ter 
ritory  of  Louisiana  The  questions  were  momen 
tous.  The  whole  Union  was  then  convulsed  on  the 
subject  of  si  .very,  growing  out  of  the  Missouri  con 
troversy.  Congress  had  just  passed  an  act  for  the 
admission  of  Missouri  without  restriction,  but  with  a 
prohibition  of  slavery  in  all  the  territory  north  and 
west  of  her.  The  act  was  just  coming  to  Mr  Mon 
roe  for  his  approval  or  disapproval.  If  approved  by 
him,  it  became  a  law  at  once ;  if  disapproved,  the 
act  was  defeated  forever  !  for  it  was  known  that  the 
constitutional  majorities  of  two-thirds  of  Congress 
could  not  be  obtained  for  the  act  if  disapproved  by 
the  President.  The  whole  responsibility  of  passing 
or  defeating  the  act,  then  rested  on  Mr.  Monroe  He 
felt  the  magnitude  of  that  responsibility,  and  saw 
that  it  was  an  occasion  to  require  the  gravest  advice 
of  his  Cabinet.  He  determined  to  have  their  advice 
and  in  the  most  matured  and  responsible  form.  The 
act  had  passed  on  the  3d  of  March.  He  immediately 
convoked  his  cabinet — stated  the  question— reduced 
them  to  writing— gave  a  copy  to  each  member— and 
required  them  to  be  answered  in  writing.  On  the 
6th,  all  the  answers  were  given,  and  all  in  the  affirm 
ative  on  both  quesiions  ;  and  the  act  was  immediate 
ly  approved  and  signed,  and  became  the  law  of  the 
land.  The  law  bears  date  on  that  day — March  6th, 
1820.  Mr.  Calhoun  gave  his  written  opinion  with 
the  rest,  in  favor  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  act, 
and  no  whisper  was  ever  heard  from  him  to  the  con 
trary,  or  in  denial  of  the  right  of  Congress  to  prohi 
bit  or  abolish  slavery  in  territories  until  the  introduc 
tion  of  his  fire-brand  resolutions,  twenty-seven  years 
after  his  cabinet  opinion  had  been  given.  These  reso 
lutions  were  brought  in  near  the  close  of  the  short 
session  of  1846— '7,  and  were  intended  for  general  de 
bate  at  the  session  of  1847 — '8, — the  long  session 
which  preceded  the  Presidential  election— and  to 
make  a  chance  for  himself  at  that  election  by  getting 
up  a  test  which  no  northern  man  could  stand.  But 
that  general  debate  never  came  on.  Before  the  time 
had  ripened  for  it,  the  cabinet  opinions  of  1S20  had 
been  found  out,  and  were  produced  in  the  Senate  to 
the  confusion  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  utter  prostration 
of  his  resolutions.  They  were  first  produced  by  Mr. 
Westcott,  of  Florida,  and  afterwards  by  Mr.  Dix,  of 
New  York.  The  proofs  were  in  writing,  and  to  the 
•noint,  and  from  two  different  witnesses — and  the  two, 
*  bove  all  men  ia  the  world,  the  most  competent  and 
credible  to  testify  in  the  case — Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr. 
Adams — both  dead,  but  both  speaking  from  the  tomb, 
aad  in  the  highest  form  known  to  the  law  of  avidence 
— that  of  recorded  evidence,  written  down  at  the 
time  as  the  true  history  of  a  fact,  and  without  the 
slightest  expectation  that  it  was  ever  to  be  used 
against  any  human  being.  Mr.  Monroe's  testimony 
was  in  his  own  hand  writing,  obtained  from  his  son-in- 
law,  and  consisted  of  two  pieces — one  being  the  inter 
rogatories  propounded  to  his  cabinet,  and  the  other 
the  autograph  copy,  or  draft  of  a  letter  to  a  friend. 
the  interrogatories  were  endorsed  thus  :  *'  Interroga 


tories  Missouri,,  March,  4,  1820'"  "  To  the  headt 
of  Departments  and  Attorney  General  "  The  in 
terrogatories  themselves  were  in  these  words  : 

"  Has  a  Congress  a  right  under  the  powers  vested 
in  it  by  the  Constitution  to  make  a  regulation  prohi 
biting  slavery  in  a  Territory  1" 

"  Is  the  8th  section  of  the  act  which  passed  both. 
Houses  on  the  3d  instant  for  the  admission  of  Mis 
souri  into  the  Union,  consistent  with  the  Constitu 
tion  1" 

With  these  questions  was  an  original  draft  of  a  let 
ter  in  Mr.  Monroe's  band  writing,  not  dated,  signed, 
or  addressed  to  any  one,  but  supposed  to  be  written  to 
General  Jackson,  which  letter  shows  that  these  two 
questions  were  put  to  Mr  Monroe's  cabinet,  were  an 
swered  by  them  in  writing,  and  that  they  were  unan 
imous  in  answering  the  questions  in  the  affirmative. 
This  is  the  letter  : 

'•DEAR  SIR:  The  question  which  lately  agitated 
Congress  and  the  public  has  been  settled,  as  you  have 
seen,  by  the  passage  of  an  act  for  the  admission  of 
Missouri  as  a  state,  unrestrained,  and  Arkansas  like 
wise  when  it  reaches  maturity,  and  the  establishment 
of  36d.  30m.  north  latitude  as  a  line,  north  of 
which  slavery  is  prohibited,  and  permitted  to  the 
south.  I  took  the  opinion  in  writing  of  the  adminis 
tration  as  to  the  constitutionality  of  restraining  terri 
tories,  [and  the  vote  of  every  member  was  unanimous 
and*]  which  was  explicit  in  favor  of  it,  and  as  it  was 
that  the  8th  section  of  the  act  was  applicaple  to  terri 
tories  only,  and  not  to  states  when  they  should  be  ad 
mitted  into  the  Union.  On  this  latter  point  I  had  at 
first  some  doubt;  but  the  opinion  of  others,  whose 
opinions  were  entitled  to  weight  with  me,  supported 
by  the  sense  in  which  it  was  viewed  by  all  who  voted 
on  the  subject  in  Congress,  as  will  appear  by  the  jour 
nals,  satisfied  me  respecting  it." 

The  words  in  brackets  were  crossed  out  by  running 
the  pen  through  them,  and  the  word  explicit  substitu 
ted—a  substitution  evidently  made  to  avoid  violating 
the  cabinet  rule,  not  to  tell  the  opinions  of  members, 
which  the  word  unanimous  would  do.  But  the  word 
explicit  is  sufficient.  Taken  in  connexion  yfith  tha 
rest  of  the  paper— with  the  result — and  with  the 
(almost)  thirty  years  silence  of  Mr  Calhoun,  and  that 
word  is  equivalent  to  the  word  unanimous.  For  it  il 
not  to  be  presumed  that  Mr.jCalhoun  was  omitted  ia 
the  address  of  the  questions— or  that  he  failed  to  an 
swer,  and  to  answer  as  the  President  required,  in  writ- 
ting— or,that  failing  to  answer,  it  would  not  have  been 
noted— or,  answering'negatively,  it  would  not  have 
been  equally  noted — or,  above  all.  that  differing  from 
Crawford  and  other  southern  men  on  this  delicate 
point,  he  would  not  have  let  the  secret  out  at  the 
time,  or  produced  since  as  an  evidence  of  his  guar 
dianship  over  southern  interests,  and  as  a  proof  of  his 
precious  consistency.  The  presumption  against  him, 
and  the  absence  of  all  these  concomitants  of  dissent, 
are  proof  positive  that  he  concurred  with  the  rest  of 
the  cabinet  at  the  time,  and  never  thought  of  deny 
ing  it  until  caught  fast  and  hard  in  the  fixed  fact  of  a 
killing  contradiction. 

But  the  other  piece  of  writing  is  still  more  close 
and  stern  than  the  letter  of  Mr.  Monroe.  It  is  tfee 
diary  of  Mr.  Adams,  written  down  at  the  time,  and 
clear  and  pointed  in  every  particular — the  questions, 
the  answers,  the  unanimity,  the  writing  of  the  an 
swers,  and  their  deposit  in  the  Department  of  State. 
The  extract  from  this  diary,  furnished  and  certified 
by  the  son,  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  is  in  these 
words : 

Extracts  from  the  Diary  of  .1.  Q.  Adams. 

"March  3, 1820— -When!  came  this  day  to  my  of- 


fice,  T  found  there  a  note  requesting  me  to  call  at  one 
o'clock,  at  the  President's  house.  It  was  then  one, 
t.nd  I  immediately  went  over.  He  expected  that  the 
two  bills,  for  the  admission  of  Maiue,  and  to  enable 
Mis<*uri  to  inake  a  constitution,  would  have  been 
brought  to  hiui  for  his  signature  ;  and  he  had  sum 
moned  all  the  members  of  the  administration  to  ask 
tbeir  opinions  in  writing,  to  be  deposited  m  the  De 
partment  of  State,  upon  two  questions  :  1.  Whether 
Congress  had  a  constitutional  right  to  prohibit  slave 
ry  in  a  territory  1  and  2  Whether  the  eighth  section 
of  the  Missouri  bill  (which  interdicts  slavery  forever 
in  the  territory  north  of  36£d  latitude)  was  applica 
ble  oniy  to  the  territorial  state,  or  would  extend  to  it 
afier  it  should  become  a  state  1  As  to  the  first  ques 
tion,  it  was  unanimously  agreed  that  Congress  have 
the  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories  " 

"  March  5 — The  President  se  t  me  j'esterday  the 
two  questions  in  writing,  upon  which  he  desired  to 
have  answers  in  writing,  to  be  deposited  in  the  De 
partment  of  State.  He  wrote  me  that  it  would  be 
in  time,  if  he  f'hould  have  the  answers  to-morrow  - 
The  first  question  is  in  general  terms,  as  it  was  stated 
at  the  meeting  on  Friday.  The  second  was  mod  fied 
to  an  inquiry  whether  the  eighth  section  of  the  Mis- 
eouri  bill  is  consistent  with  the  constitution  To 
this  I  can,  without  hesitation,  answer  by  a  simple  af 
firmative  and  so  after  some  reflection,  I  concluded  to 
answer  both.  ***** 

"March  6—  *  *  *  *  1  took  to  the  President 
my  answers  to  his  two  constitutional  questions  and  he 
desired  me  to  have  them  deposited  in  the  department 
together  with  those  of  the  other  members  of  the  Ad 
ministration.  They  differed  only  as  they  assigned 
their  reason  for  hinking  the  eighth  section  of  the 
Missouri  bi  1  consistent  with  the  constitution  because 
they  considered  it  as  only  applying  to  the  territorial 
term,  and  I  barely  gave  my  opinion,  without  as 
signing  for  it  any  explanatory  reason  The  Presi 
dent  signed  the  Missouri  bill  this  morning  " 

This  testimony  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  or  quib 
ble.  It  is  clear  and  positive  at  all  points.  It  was 
overwhelmingly  conclusive.  Mr.  Calhoun  should 
have  surrendered.  His  evil  genius,  and  the  fix  he 
was  in  as  the  leader  of  a  part.y  founded  on  new  ideas, 
the  reverse  of  bis  old  ones,  and  the  disease  of  iacon- 
sistenc.,  made  him  hesitate  and  deny,  not  directly, 
butarguinentativeiy,  and  in  the  way  of  non-recollec 
tion  He  could  not  remember— and  he  could  not  be 
lieve  that  he  could  have  given  a  written  opinion  in 
such  an  important  matter  without  remembering  it ! — 
Unhappy  man  !  he  did  not  perceive  that  this  species 
of  argumentative  denial  was  far  stronger  the  other 
way  !  that  it  would  have  been  far  more  difficult  to 
have  forgotten  his  opinion,  if  he  had  stood  alone  in 
the  cabinet,  dissenting  from  all  the  rest,  and  disobey 
ing  the  President's  command  to  an>Wv-r  !  This  would 
have  been  the  thing  difficult  to  have  been  forgot,  and 
still  more  difficult  to  have  been  concealed  !  Sensible 
of  the  damage  he  iiad  done  himself  by  this  non-re 
collection,  Mr  Calhoun  undertook  to  rehabilitate 
himself  by  assuming  to  know  all  about  the  compro 
mise,  and  by  giving  a  statement  of  it  which  WHS  in 
tended  to  convince  the  Senate  that  his  memory  was 
good,  and  entitled  to  credit  in  opposition  to  all  the 
testimony  against  him.  He  began  with  charac 
teristic  assumption  of  knowing  every  thing,  and  end 
ed  by  showing  that  he  knew  nothing  He  said: 

"  I  know  well  all  about  the  compromise  ;  the  cause 
which  led  to  it,  and  the  reason  why,  that  the  north 
ern  men  who  voted  against  it  were  universally  sacri 
ficed  for  so  doing  it  is  quite  a  mistake,  as  some 
suppose,  that  they  were  sacrificed  for  voting  for  the 
compromise  The  very  reverse  is  the  case.  The 
I  will  proceed  to  state  :  During  the  session 


of  the  compromise,  Mr.  Lowndes  and  myself  re 
sided  together  He  was  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representative*,  and  I  was  Secretary  of  War. 
We  both  felt  the  magnitude  of  the  subject  — 
Missouri,  at  the  preceding  session,  had  present 
ed  herself  for  admission  as  a  member  of  the 
Union.  She  had  formed  a  constitution  and 
government,  in  accordance  with  an  acr  of  Con 
gress.  Her  admission  was  refused  on  the  ground  that 
her  constitution  admitted  of  slavery  ;  and  she  was  re 
manded  back  to  have  the  objectionable  provision  ex 
punged  She  refused  to  comply  with  the  requisition, 
and  at  the  next  session  again  knocked  at  the  door  of 
Congress  for  admission,  with  her  constitution  as  it 
originally  stood  This  gave  rise  to  one  of  the  most 
agitating  discussions  that  ever  occurred  in  Congress. 
The  subject  was  one  of  repeated  conversation  between 
Mr.  Lowndes  and  myself  The  quesiion  was,  what 
was  to  be  done  and  what  would  be  the  consequence  if 
she  was  not  admitted  After  full  reflection  we  both 
agreed  that  Missouri  was  a  state— made  so  by  a  regu 
lar  process  of  law.  and  never  could  be  remanded  back 
to  the  territorial  condition.  Such  being  the  case,  we 
also  agreed  that  the  only  question  was,  whether  she 
should  be  a  state  in  or  out  of  the  Union  1  and  it  was 
for  Covgress  to  decide  which  position  she  should  oc 
cupy.  My  friend  made  one  of  bis  able  and  lucid 
speeches  on  the  occasion;  but  whether  it  has  been 
preserved  or  not,  1  am  not  able  to  say.  It  carried 
conviction  to  the  minds  of  all,  and  in  fact  settled  the 
question.  The  question  was  narrowed  down  to  & 
single  point.  All  saw  that  if  Missouri  was  not  ad 
mitted  she  would  remain  an  independent  state,  on  the 
west  bank  of  tbe  Mississippi,  and  would  become  the 
nucleus  of  a  new  confederation  of  states,  extending 
over  the  whole  of  Louisiana  None  weie  willing  to 
contribute  to  such  a  result  ;  and  the  only  question 
that  remained  with  the  northern  members  who  had 
opposed  her  admission  was,  to  devise  some  means  of 
escaping  from  the  awkward  dilemma  in  which  they 
found  themselves  To  back  out  or  compromise,  were 
the  only  alternatives  left ;  and  the  latter  was  eagerly 
seized  to  avoid  tbe  disgrace  of  the  former  ;  so  eager 
ly,  that  all  who  opposed  it  at  the  north  were  consider 
ed  traitors  to  thai  'section  of  the  Union,  and  sacrifi 
ced  for  their  votes." 

Every  part  of  this  statement  is  erroneous,  and  to 
such  a  degree  as  to  destroy  all  reliance  upon  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's  memory.  He  says  that  during  the  compro 
mise  session  he  and  Mr.  Lowndes  resided  together, 
and  that  at  the  preceding  s-ession  Missouri  had  pre 
sented  her  constitution,  made  under  the  act  of  Con 
gress,  and  applied  for  admission  into  the  Union. 
Now  this  is  error.  The  constitution  of  Missouri  fol 
lowed,  and  did  not  precede  the  compromise  act. 
That  act  was  passed  March  6th,  1820,  the  constitution 
framed  under  it  was  signed  July  19th  of  the  same 
year;  and  was  presented  to  Congress  ia  the  mon  h  of 
November  following — Congress  in  that  year  having 
met  on  the  second  Monday  in»November  Here  then 
is  an  error  of  a  year  in  point  of  time,  and  a  transposi 
tion  of  events  in  point  of  fact.  The  constitution  of 
Missouri  was  mad<?  after  the  compromise,  and  in 
pursuance  of  it  ;  and  not  to  know  that  much  was  to 
know  nothing  at  all  about  it.  Mr.  Calhoun  says  the 
admission  was  refused,  and  the  constitution  remand 
ed  back,  because  it  admitted  slavery  in  Missouri. 
This  is  great  error  The  act  of  Congress  under 
which  the  Missouri  constitution  was  made  admitted 
slavery  in  Missouri,  and  herconstitution  could  not  be, 
and  was  not,  refused  on  that  ground  The  admission 
was  not  refused  for  that  cau^e,  nor  for  any  thing  like 
it,  nor  for  any  thing  in  relation  to  slavery,  but  the 
direct  opposite— for  a  clause  in  relation  to  free  peo 
ple  of  color,  and  by  which,  it  was  contended,  the 


citizens  of  other  states  might  be  prevented  from  re 
moving  to  the  state  of  Missouri.  The  clause  was 
this:  "  To  prevent  free  negroes  and  mulattos  from 
coming  to.  and  settling  in  this  state,  under  any  pretext 
whatever."  The  provision  was  found  in  clause  4,  sec 
tion  26,  of  article  3,  of  the  constitution,  and  was  ob 
jected  to  as  being  inconsistent  with  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  rights  of  the  states,  as 
in  some  of  those  states  free  people  of  color  might  be 
citizens.  This  was  the  clause  objected  to,  and  not 
the  one  sanctioning  slavery.  Mr.  Calhoun  says  the 
constitution  was  remanded  back  to  the  state  to  have 
the  slavery  clause  expunged.  It  was  not  remanded 
for  the  purpose  of  having  any  thi  g  expunged,  but 
the  contrary — to  have  something  added — to  obtain 
the  legislative  assent  of  the  state  to  the  joint  reso 
lution  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  declaring  that 
the  clause  in  question  should  never  be  so  construed  as 
to  exclude  from  settlement,  and  the  rights  of  citizen 
ship,  the  citizens  of  other  states  einig  ating  to  Mis 
souri.  Mr  Calhoun  says  the  state  refused  to  comply 
with  the  requisition  of  Congress  This  is  more  error. 
The  state  complied  immediately;  the  legislative  as 
sent  to  the  required  construction  of  the  objectionable 
clause  being  given  on  the  26th  day  of  June,  in  the 
same  year.  He  says  the  state  knocked  again  with 
her  constitution  at  the  door  of  Congress  at  the  next 
session,  and  that  this  gave  rise  to  the  most  agitating 
discussion  that  ever  took  place  in  Congress.  This  is 
the  very  error  of  the  moon.  The  state  never  applied 
to  Congress  again,  but  was  admitted  in  the  recess, 
and  before  next  meeting  of  Congress,  and  by  procla 
mation  from  President  Monroe.  The  proclamation, 
was  issued  the  10th  of  August,  1820,  in  pursuance  to 
the  joint  resolution  of  Congress  of  the  second  of 
March  of  that,  year,  expressly  framed  to  save  the  state 
from  applying  to  Congress  again,  by  referring  it  to 
the  President  to  proclaim  her  admission  as  soon  as 
she  assented  to  the  required  construction  of  the  ob 
noxious  article.  The  fact  is,  that  Congress  did  not 
refuse  to  admit  the  s*ate  at  all — on  the  contrary, 
passed  a  joint  resolution  at  her  first  session  of  the 
presentation  of  the  constitution,  for  her  admission 
*'  on  a  certain  condition'' — en  compliance  with  which 
condition  her  admission  was  to  be  complete,  without 
further  proceeding  on  the  part  of  Congress,  and  was 
to  be  so  proclaimed  by  the  President.  All  this  ap 
pears  in  the  legislative  history  of  the  country,  and 
was  authentically  recited  in  the  proclamation  issued 
on  the  occasion.  This  is  the  proclamation : 

WHEREAS  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  by  a 
Joint  resolution  of  the  2d  day  of  March  last,  entitled 
"  Resolution  providing  for  the  admission  of  the  state 
of  Missouri  into  the  Union  on  a  certain  condition," 
did  determine  and  declare—"  That  Missouri  should 
be  admitted  into  this  Union  on  an  equal  footing  with 
the  original  states,  in  all  respects  whatever,  upon  the 
fundamental  condition  that  the  fourth  clause  of  the 
26th  section  of  the  3d  article  of  the  constitution  sub 
mitted  on  the  part  of  said  state  to  Congress,  shall 
ne*er  be  construed  to  authorise  the  passage  of  any 
law,  and  that  no  law  shall  be  passed  in  conformity 
thereto,  by  which  any  citizen  of  either  of  the  states 
of  this  Union  shall  be  excluded  from  the  enjoy 
ment  of  any  of  the  privileges  and  immunities  to 
which  each  citizen  is  entitled  under  the  consti 
tution  of  the  United  States:  Provided,  That  the 
legislature  of  the  said  state,by  a  solemn  public  act.  shall 
declare  the  assent  of  said  state  to  the  said  fundamen 
tal  condition,  and  shall  transmit  to  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  on  or  before  the  first  Monday  in 
November  next,  an  authentic  copy  of  said  act ;  upon 
the  receipt  whereof  the  President  by  proclamation 
shall  announce  the  fact,  whereupon,  and  without  any 


further  proceedings  on  the  part  of  Congress,  the  ad 
mission  of  the  said. state  into  thisUnion  shall  be  consid 
ered  complete:  And  whereas,  by  a  solemn  publ  c  act 
of  the  Assembly  of  the  said  state  of  Missouri,  passed 
on  the  26t,h  of  June,  in  the  present  year,  entitled  "  A 
solemn  public  act  declaring  the  assent  of  this  State 
to  the  fundamental  condition  contained  in  a  resolu 
tion  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  Unite'!  States, 
providing  for  the  admission  of  the  state  of  Missouri 
into  the  Union  on  a  certain  condition,"  an  authentic 
copy  whereof  has  been  communicated  to  me,  it  is  so 
lemnly  and  publicly  enacted  and  declared,  that  that 
state  has  assented,  and  does  assent  that  the  4th 
clause  of  the  26th  section  of  the  3d  article  of  the  con 
stitution  of  said  state,  "  shall  never  be  construed  to 
authorise  the  passage  of  any  law,  and  that  no  law 
sha,ll  be  passed  in  conformity  thereto,  by  which  any 
citizen  of  either  of  the  United  States  shall  be  exclud 
ed  from  the  enjoyment  of  any  of  the  privileges  and 
immunities  to  which  such  citizens  are  entitled  under 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States  :  NOW,  thereforgt 
I,  James  Monroe,  President  of  the  United  States,  in 
pursuance  of  the  resolution  of  Congress  aforesaid, 
have  issued  this  my  proclamation,  announcing  the 
fact,  that  the  said  state  of  Missouri  has  assented  to 
the  fundamental  condition  required  by  the  resolution 
aforesaid  :  WHEREUPON  the  admission  of  the  state  of 
Missouri  into  the  Union  is  declared  to  be  complete. 

In  testimony  whereof  I  have  caused  the  seal  of  the 
United  States  of  America  to  be  affixed  to  these  pres 
ents,  and  signed  the  same  with  my  hand.  Done  at 
city  of  Washington,  the  10th  day  of  August,  1821, 
and  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  the  46th. 

JAMES  MONROE." 

By  the  President, 
JOHN  Q.UINCY  ADAUS, 

Secretary  of  State." 

Now  this  proclamation  was  issued  from  the  cabinet 
of  which  MY.  Calhoun  was  a  member,  and  appears  to 
have  been  as  completely  forgotten  by  him  as  were  tha 
cabinet  decisions  of  the  same  year  in  favor  of  the  pow 
er  of  Congress  to  legislate  upon  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  territories,  and  to  abolish  it  in  territories  ;  for  that 
was  the  effect  of  the  compromise  act  of  1820.  He  ac 
tually  forgets  that  Missouri  was  admitted  upon  a 
proclamation,  issued  from  the  cabinet  council  of  which 
he  was  a  member !  and  goes  on  to  substitute  the 
wanderings  of  his  imagination  for  the  legislative 
history  of  the  country,  in  giving  a  supposed  circum 
stantial  account  of  what  took  place  between  him 
self  and  Mr.  Lowndes,  afcer  the  second  rejection  of 
the  Missouri  constitution,  and  which  led  to  the  con 
clusions  which,  according  to  him,  produced  the  com 
promise.  "  To  back  out,  or  compromise,  was  the 
only  alternative  left ;  and  the  latter  was  eagerly 
seized  upon  to  avoid  the  disgrace  of  the  former."  So 
says  Mr.  Calhoun :  and  so  saying,  he  postpones  the 
compromise  a  whole  year,  and  couples  it  with  aa 
event  to  which  it  does  not  belong,  and  makes  it  the 
effect  of  a  cause  which  never  existed.  It  is  postpon 
ed  from  the  se  sion  '19-'20  to  the  session  '20-,2l ; 
and  it  is  connected  with  the  final  admission  of  Mis 
souri,  after  she  had  become  a  state,  instead  of  being 
connected  with  the  preliminary  act  which  authorized 
her  to  form  a  state  constitution.  Never  was  eucb. 
blundering  seen  !  It  is  even  questionable  whether 
he  is  not  mistaken  in  the  statement  that  he  and  Mr. 
Lowndes  resided  together  at  the  time  that  Missouri 
I  resented  her  constitution.  He  says  they  did.  My 
impression  is  to  the  contrary— that  Mr.  Calboun 
lived  with  his  family  at  that  time,  (session  of  ?20-'21) 
in  D  street,  and  Mr.  Lowndes  in  a  boarding  house. 
It  is  also  questionable  whether  Mr.  Lowades  did 
much  towards  passing  the  joint  resolution  under 


6 


which  the  state  was  admitted  He  was  in  declining 
health  at  that  time  ;  and  although  ho  spoke  once  in 
f.i\  i.r  of  the  admission  after  the  constitution  was  pre 
sented,  and  spoke  with  the  manly  sense  and  patriotic 
feeling  which  belonged  o  him,  yet  he  soon  ceased  to 
attend,  and  went  abroad  for  his  health,  and  died.  It 
was  Mr.  Clay  who  consulted  me  about  the  joint  re 
solution,  and  with  whom  I  agreed  that  it  would  an 
swer  the  purpose,  and  gave  nay  opinion  that  the 
state  would  agree  to  it  immediately,  which  she  did. 
By  that  joint  resolution  the  question  of  admission 
was  not  to  come  before  Congress  again,  and  did  not, 
and  was  purposely  framed  to  avoid  a  second  appear 
ance  of  the  state  at  the  bar  of  Congress  ;  so  that  all 
this  story  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  about  the  manner  in 
which  the  compromise  was  seized,  to  avoid  dis 
grace,  after  the  rejection  of  the  constitution,  is  a 
mere  figment  of  the  brain,  coined  for  the  purpose  of 

Jetting  out  of  the  cabinet  council  of  March  6th, 
820.  Far  better  to  have  confessed  what  was  pro 
per—to  have  admitted  the  truth  of  Mr.  Monroe's  and 
Mr.  Adams's  disinterested  testimony — and  to  have 
taken  the  ground  of  a  change  of  opinion  since  that 
time.  That  would  have  been  the  discreetest  course. 
But,  oh,  the  disease  of  consistency!  that  malady 
of  his  mind  !  and  the  hard  fate  of  a  leader,  almost 
affecting  the  prophet,  and  bound  under  all  circum 
stances,  to  maintain  his  infallibility  in  the  eyes  of  his 
followers,  under  the  awful  penalty  of  losing  domin 
ion  over  them. 

Some  search  has  been  made  in  the  department  of 
state  tor  the  written  opinions  of  the  cabinet,  without 
finding  them  :  bub  that  weighs  nothing  against 
the  positive  testimony  that  they  were  put  there. 
The  wonder  would  be  to  find  them  after  27  years, 
and  so  many  changes  of  clerks ;  and  it  is  to  be  re 
membered  that  no  one  of  Mr,  vionroe's  cabinet  has 
been  Secretary  of  State  since  that  time  but  Mr.  Cal 
houn. 

The  fact  is  established— established  by  the  rules 
of  evidence  which  convince  the  human  mind,  even 
the  most  unwilling— that  Mr.  Calhoun,  as  a  cabi 
net  minister  under  Mr.  Monroe,  supported  the  con 
stitutionality  of  the  Missouri  compromise  act. — 
This  fact  being  established,  let  us  see  what  that 
act  was  ;  and  that  will  be  shown  by  the  title  to  the 
act — by  the  act  itself  -and  by  the  actual  condition  of 
the  territory  in  which  it  was  to  operate.  This  is  the 
title: 

"  An  Act  to  authorize  the  people  of  the  Missouri 
territory  to  form  accnstitution  and  state  government, 
and  for  the  admission  of  such  state  into  the  Union  on 
an  equal  footing  with  the  original  states,  and  to  pro 
hibit  slavery  in  certain  territories." 

A  very  intelligible  title  this,  especially  in  the  con 
cluding  cause,  and  enough  to  have  startled  Mr  Cal 
houn,  if  he  had  held  the  same  doctrines  on  the  powers 
of  Congress  then,  which  he  professes  now.  The  act 
itself  was  in  these  words  : 

"  Sec.  8.  That  in  all  that  territory  ceded  by 
France  to  the  United  States,  under  the  name  of 
Louisiana,  which  lies  north  of  36  degrees  30  minutes 
north  latHndd,  not  included  wiihin  the  limits  of  the 
state  contemplated  by  this  act,  slavery  and  involun 
tary  servitude,  otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of 
the  crimes  whereof  the  parties  shall  have  been  con 
victed,  shall  be,  and  hereby  is,  forever  prohibited." 

Such  are  the  words  of  the  act — the  very  words  of 
the  Wilrnot  Proviso,  and  if  a.ny  modern  copyist  is  to 
supersede  Mr  Je;  erson  in  the  paternity  of  that  pro- 
vis->  it  should  be  John  C.  Calhoun,  and  not  Davy 
Wilinot !  It  should  be  called  the  Calhoun  Proviso  ! 


and  that  for  many  and  cogent  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  he  was  nearly  thirty  years  ahead  of  Davy  in 
the  support  of  this  proviso.  In  the  second  place,  his 

Cition  was  higher,  being  a  Cabinet  Minister,  and 
voice  more  potent  al,  being  a  southern  man.  In 
the  third  place,  he  was  part  of  the  veto  power  where 
three  voices  were  a  majority  ;  Davy  only  a  member 
of  the  legislative  power,  where  it  requires  a  majority 
of  both  houses  to  do  anything.  In  the  fourth  place, 
Calhoun  was  successful,  iJavy  is  not.  Finally, 
Davy's  proviso  is  a  weak  contrivance  to  prevent 
slavery  from  being  where  it  is  not,  and  where  it 
never  will  be  ;  Calhoun's  proviso  was  a  manly  blow 
to  kill  slavery,  where  it  then  existed,  by  law,  and 
where  it  would  now  exist  in  point  of  fact,  if  that 
blow  had  not  been  struck  The  proviso  of  Mr.  Cal 
houn  actually  abolished  slavery  where  it  existed  by 
law — in  all  the  upper  half  of  Louisiana — from  36 — 
30  to  49,  and  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Kocky 
Mountains— over  a  territory  nearly  a  thousand  miles 
square— nearly  a  million  square  miles— enough  to 
make  tweuty  states  of  50,000  square  miles  each — 
more  in  fact  than  all  California,*  New  Mexico  and 
Oregon  put  together.  Over  all  this  vast  territory 
the  proviso,  supported  by  Calhoun,  abolished  slavery 
— abolished  it,  then  existing  by  law — and  shut  it  up 
from  the  slave  emigration  of  the  soutn.  And  novr 
what  becomes  of  the  dogma,  in  bis  month,  and  that 
of  his  followers,  so  recently  invented,  of  no  power  in 
Congress  to  legislate  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in 
territories  *?  what  becomes,  in  their  mouths,  of  the 
new  fangled  point  of  honor,  just  felt  for  the 
first  time  in  thiriy  years,  of  insult  to  slave 
states  in  their  exclusion  from  settlement  to  the 
territories  bought  by  the  blood  and  treasure  of 
the  whole  Union  1  Louisiana  was  a  territory,  and 
Congress  legislated  upon  slavery  in  it,  and  legislated 
slavery  out  of  a  million  of  square  miles  of  it,  and  Mr. 
Calhoun  s  p  orted  that  legislation.  Louisiana  was 
a  territory  acquired  by  the  treasure,  if  not  by  the 
blood,  of  the  whole  Union  ;  and  the  proviso  of  1820, 
supported  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  shut  up  one  half  of  it  from 
slave  emigration.  If  that  is  insult,  he  and  his  fol 
lowers  have  stood  being-  insulted  most  remarkably 
well  for  about  thirty  years ;  and,  perhaps,  would  con 
sult  their  own  self-respect,  and  lose  nothing  in  -pub 
lic  opinion,  if  they  should  continue  standing  it  with 
like  fortitude,  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

I  do  not  quote  this  conduct  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in  giv 
ing  the  answer  which  he  did  to  Mr.  Monroe's  inter 
rogatories,  for  the  purpose  of  v  ndicating  the  right  of 
Congress  to  prohibit  or  abolish  slavery  in  territories. 
When  J  feel  it  necessary  to  vindicate  that  right  I 
shall  have  recourse  to  very  different  authority  from 
that  which  can  be  quoted  on  every  side  of  every  ques 
tion  it  ever  touchedV  1  quote  it  for  a  very  different 
purpose,  for  the  purpose  of  shutting  up  the  mouths  of 
his  followers  as  completely  as  it  shut  up  bis  own  from 
the  day  he  was  confronted  with  it.  brom  tbat  day 
to  the  present  he  has  never  mentioned  his  resolu 
tions  !  never  called  for  that  vote  upon  them  which  he 
declared  himself  determined  to  have  when  he  intro 
duced  them. 

In  giving  his  cabinet  support,  where  his  voice  was 
so  potential  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  over  a  million 
of  square  miles  in  Louisiana,  Mr.  Calboun  did  more 
than  any  one  man  has  ever  done  towards  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  world.  Holung,  as  he  then  did,  the 
one  fifth  part  of  the  veto  power,  and  commanding  as 
his  position  was,  as  a  southern  man  and  a  cabinet 
minister — a  leading  cabinet  minister — th«  largest 
question  ever  started  of  free  or  clave  soil,  was  then  in 
his  hands  ;  and  he  decided  it  in  favor  of  freedom.  It 
wasan  immense  boon  to  the  anti-slavery  party, tbenso 
numerous  and  ardent ;  but  it  was  not  the  only  service 


whjch  he  then  rendered  them.  Texas  was  then  ours 
— a  part  of  Louisiana — to  the  lower  Rio  Grande  ; 
large  enough  to  form  six  great, or  ten  common  states. 
It  was  all  slave  territory,  a.-,d  looked  to  as  the  natu 
ral  outlet  of  the  southern  states,  with  their  great  in 
creasing  slave  population.  It  was  given  to  the  King 
of  Spain — given  away  by  treaty,  and  that  treaty  the 
work  of  Mr  Monroe's  cabinet— Mr.  Calhoun  being  a 
member.  And  here  there  is  no  room  for  denial  and 
non-recollection.  For  a  long  time  Mr.  Adams  bore 
the  blame  of  that  cession.  A  friend  of  Mr.  Calhoun 
reproached  him  with  it  in  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  Mr  Adams  was  then  alive,  and  present,  and 
soon  vindicated  the  truth  of  history.  He  showed 
that  there  was  a  division  in  the  cabinet,  upon  the 
point ;  he  was  against  it— Mr.  Calhoun  for  it — and 
Mr  Calhoun  being  a  southern  man,  and  the  majority 
of  the  cabinet  southern,  he  carried  the  day,  and 
Texas  was  lost.  1  was  not  then  in  publio  life,  but  I 
wrote  against  that  act,  blaming  Mr.  Adams  when  I 
should  have  blamed  Mr  Calhoun.  By  that  cession 
the  expansion  of  slavery  was  stopped;  the  growth 
of  slave  states  in  the  southwest  was  stopped  ;  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square  miles  subject  to 
American  slavery,  was  cut  off  from  American  domi 
nion,  and  presented  to  a  toreign  king  This  was  an 
other  great  gratification  to  the  abolitionists  ;  but  it 
was  not  all  There  was  a  strip  of  land,  about  large 
enough  for  two  states,  lying  upon  the  Arkansas  and 
Red  rivers,  and  between  Texas  and  the  36  deg.  30 
min.  of  north  latitude.  This  strip -having  escaped 
the  compromise  line  on  one  side,  and  the  Texas  ces 
sion  on  the  other,  was  open  to  the  formation  of  two 
respectable  slave  states.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  then  still 
cabinet  minister — Secretary  at  War — bad  the  Indians 
under  his  care— and  was  riding  the  hobby  of  their 
civilization.  He  required  this  strip  to  be  given  up  to 
the  Indians  for  their  permanent  abode  ;  and  thus  it, 
also,  was  lost  to  the  slate  states.  All  Louisiana  was 
then  gone  from  them  except  the  fragment  which  was 
contained  in  the  States  of  Missouri  and  Louisiana, 
and  in  the  territory  of  Arkansas.  Even  this  frag 
ment  appeared  to  be  too  much  to  be  left  to  the  slave 
states,  and  a  slice  forty  miles  wide,  and  three  hun 
dred  mPes  long,  was  cut  off  from  Arkansas  and  given 
to  the  Indians  ;  and  the  slaveholders  with  the  slaves 
upon  the  slice,  were  required  to  remove  from  the  cut 
off  part,  and  fall  back  within  the  contracted  limits  — 
This  was  done  by  the  Indian  treaty — the  treaty  ne- 

f^tiated  by  &  protege  of  Mr.  Calhoun's.  He  was  then 
ice  President  of  the  United  States,  and  President 
of  the  Senate — I  was  a  member  of  the  Senate — op 
posed  to  the  ratification  of  this  treat  —and  came 
within  one  or  two  votes  of  defeating  it.  The  slight 
est  help  from  Mr.  Calhoun  would  have  defeated  it, 
and  saved  the  slave  state  of  Arkansas  that  territory, 
And  those  salt  .springs,  the  loss  of  which  she  now  has 
to  lament  Taken  all  together — the  compromise — 
the  Texas  cession— the  Indian  domain  and  the  slice 
from  Arkansas,  and  Mr.  Calhoun  did  more,  in  less 
time,  to  abolish  slavery,  diminish  its  area,  and  in 
crease  that  of  free  soil,  than  any  man  that  has  ever 
appeared  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  of  this  the 
anti-slave  party  of  the  north  were  fully  sensible,  and 
duly  grateful.  They  gave  proof  of  their  gratitude. 
Mr  Calhoun  was  then  candidate  for  V  ice-President 
of  the  United  States:  he  became  the.  favorite  tho  of 
north— beating  even  Mr.  Adams,  himself,  on  the  free 
soil  track.  He  beat  him  six  votes  in  New  York  —ran 
head  and  neck  with  him  through  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont  and  Rhode  Island— was  even  through  Mas 
sachusetts — and  came  a  nose  ahead  on  the  northern 
track.  He  actually  beat  Mr.  Adams  in  abolition 
States— and  with  justice.  He  had  done  more  than 
bim  for  free  soil,  and  with  more  merit,  being  himself 


an  inhabitant  of  slave  Boil.  I  told  him  all  this  in  my 
first  Calhouniac,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States', 
four  days  after  he  put  in  his  fire-brand  resolutions,  id 
my  speech  to  show  him  to  bo  the  true  author  of  the 
Mexican  war.  This  is  what  I  then  said  to  him  : 

"  This  conduct  of  the  senator,  in  giving  away  Tex 
as  when  we  had  her,  and  then  making  war  to  get  her 
back,  is  an  enigma  which  he  has  never  yet  conde 
scended  to  explain,  and  which,  until  explained,  leaves 
him  in  a  state  of  self-contradiction,  which,  whether 
it  impairs  his  own  confidence  in  himself,  or  not,  must 
have  the  effect  of  destroying  the  confidence  of  others 
in  him,  and  wholly  disqualify  him  for  the  office  of 
champion  of  the  slaveholding  states.  It  was  the 
heaviest  blow  they  had  ever  received,  and  put  an  end, 
in  conjunction  with  the  Missouri  compromise,  and 
the  permanent  location  of  the  Indians  west  of  the 
Mississippi,  to  their  future  growth  or  extension,  as 
slave  states,  beyond  the  Mississippi.  The  compro 
mise,  which  was  then  in  full  progress,  and  established 
at  the  next  session  of  Congress,  cut  off  the  slave 
states  from  all  territory  north  and  we:t  of  Missouri, 
and  south  of  thirty-six  and  a  half  degrees  of  noith 
latitude  ;  the  treaty  of  1849  ceded  nearly  all  south  of 
that  degree,  comprehending  not  only  all  Texas,  but 
a  large  part  of  the  valley  of  th«  Mississippi,  on  the 
Red  River,  and  the  Arkansas,  to  a  foieign  power,  and 
brought  a  non-slaveholding  empire  to  the  confines  of 
Louisiana  and  Arkansas  ;  the  permanent  appropria 
tion  of  the  rest  of  the  territory  for  the  abode  of  civil 
ized  Indians,  swept  the  little  slaveholding  territory 
west  of  Arkansas,  and  lying  between  the  compromise 
line  and  the  cession  line  ;  and  left  the  slave  slates 
without  one  inch  of  ground  for  their  future  growth. 
Nothing  was  left  Even  the  then  territory  of  Arkan 
sas  was  encroached  upon.  A  breadth  of  forty  miles 
wide,  and  three  hundred  long,  was  cut  off  from  her, 
and  given  to  the  Cherokees,  and  there  was  not  as 
much  slave  territory  left  west  of  the  Mississippi  as  a. 
dove  could  have  rested  the  sole  of  her  foot  upon.  It 
was  not  merely  a  curtailment,  but  a  total  extinction 
of  slaveholding  territory  ;  and  done  at  a  time  when 
the  Missouri  controversy  was  raging,  and  every  effort 
made  by  northern  abolitionists  to  stop  the  growth  of 
slave  states.  The  senator  from  South  Carolina,  in 
his  support  of  the  cession  of  Texas,  and  ceding  a, 
part  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  was  then  the 
most  efficient  ally  of  the  restrictionists  at  that  time, 
and  deprives  him  of  the  right  of  setting  up  as  the 
champion  of  the  slave  stat  s  now.  1  denounced  the 
sacrifice  of  Texas  then,  believing  Mr.  Adams  to  have 
been  the  author  of  it ;  I  denounce  it  now,  knowing 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina  to  be  its  author;  and 
for  this — his  flagrant  recreancy  to  the  slave  interest 
in  their  hour  of  utmost  peril — I  hold  him  disqualified 
for  the  office  of  champion  of  the  fourteen  slave  states, 
(for  Delaware  caariot  be  counted,)  and  shall  certain 
ly  require  him  to  keep  out  of  Missouri,  and  to  confine 
himself  to  his  own  bailiwick,  when  he  comes  to  dis 
cuss  his  string  of  resolutions." 

In  these  terms,  1  reproached  him  to  his  face  for  his 
recreancy  to  the  slave  states,  when  he  was  catering 
for  free  soil  votes  He  was  forced  to  answer,  and  to 
admit  the  vote  in  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  in  favor  of 
giving  away  Texas,  and  in  conformity  to  which  vote 
the  treaty  was  made ;  but  with  respect  to  the  Mis 
souri  compromise  and  the  abolition  question,  he  gava 
an  answer  which  appeared  to  be  plausible  then,  but 
which  has  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  most  unfortu 
nate  of  his  life.  He  said,  in  his  reply  to  me  : 

"I  have  now  met,  and,  I  trust,  successfully  repelled, 
all  the  charges  made  by  the  senator  from  Missouri, 
except  those  relating  to  the  Missouri  compromise,  ., 
and  the  abolition  question  at  that  period,  for  wbich  I 
am  in  no  way  responsible.    I  was  not  then  in  Con- 


8 


gress     I  filled  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  at  the 
time,  and  had  no  agency  or  control  over  it." 

This  was  the  answer— the  whole  that  he  chose 
to  give  I  did  not  then  know  of  the  proofs  of  the 
calm  et  consultation,  and  of  his  opinion  at  the  coun 
cil  table  in  answer  to  Mr.  Monroe's  two  questions. 
The  proofs  had  not  then  come  to  light,  and  he  was 
Bate  tor  the  time,  in  disclaiming  all  responsibility  for 
the  Missouri  compromise,  and  the  consequent  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  by  a  law  of  Congress,  in  upwards  of 
one-half  of  all  Louisiana;  he  was  safe  in  taking  re 
fuge  under  the  declaration  that  he  was  Secretary  of 
War,  and  not  a  member  of  Congress,  and,  consequent 
ly  bad  no  agency  in  this  act,  or  any  control  over  it  — 
This  was  a  plausable  answer  at  the  time  ;  and  he 
stood  acquitted  for  the  moment.  The  discovery  of 
the  proot  the  next  year,  (1848)  reverses  the  acquit- 


with  impunity  ;  but  we  did  not  think  the  floor  of  the 
Senate  tho  proper  place  for  replying  to  an  att^pk 
made  out  or  doors  The  forum  of  our  respective 
states  was  deemed  the  proper  place,  lie  had  assail- 
us  before  his  constituents,  and  we  determined  to  an 
swer  him  before  ours.  Gen.  Houston  has  replied. — 
lie  did  so  during  the  past  session  of  Congress,  in  a 
published  address  to  his  constituents.  It  was  publish 
ed  while  Mr.  Calhoun  was  in  the  city,  and  where  he 
might  answer  it  if  he  pleased.  He  did  not  so  please 
He  stood  mute — as  if  the  antagonist  was  not  wor 
thy  of  notice— a  privilege^of  dignity  which  did  not 
belong  to  him  after  he  had  began  the  attack.  He 
said  nothing  ;  and  in  that  he  did  better  than  when  he 
denied  his  support  of  the  Mis3ouricouipromi.se  act. — 
He  did  well  in  saying  nothing.  It  was  a  case  in 
which  public  attention  should  not  be  raised  by  con- 


..-  -     .  troversy.     Houston  soon  showed  what  the  charge'of 

tal-establishes  his  agency   in  the   Missouri  compro-    „  defecJtion»  meant,  and   then  carried'the  war  into 

Africa.  He  charged  him  with  his  designs  against 
the  Union  for  twenty  years  past,  and  supported  what 
he  said  by  an  array  of  facts  which  could  neither  be 
explained  away  nor  denied.  That  address  of  Hous 
ton's  should  be  republished  by  the  papers  friendly  to 
the  Union.  It  is  full  of  truth  and  patriotism — wor 
thy  of  the  disciple  of  Jackson — and  killing  to  Cal- 
houn.  He  did  well  not  to  fix  public  attention  upon 


mise  act,  his  control  over  it,  and  his  responsibility  for 
it — true,  he  was  not  a  member  of  Congress  in  1820, 
to  give  a  vote  amounting  to  but  little  among  two  or 
three  hundred  others,  for  or  against  the  Missouri  com 
promise,  but  he  was  a  cabinet  minister  to  give  a  heavy 
vote,  one  in  five,  for  or  against  its  approval.  He  was 
not  a  part  of  the  legislative  power,  but  he  was  of  the 
veto  power  ;  and  he  gave  his  vote  for  the  approval, 
and  against  the  veto.  This  shows  that  he  had  agen 


it  by  replying  to  it.     1  told  Houston  that  I  should 


cy  in  the  question,  and  control  over  it,  and  is  respon-  jj  in  a  speech  to  'my  constituents  ;  and  that  i  am 

Bibb  for  it      Considering  his  position  as  a  southern  noVdoing 

man,  and  his   weight  in   Mr.  Monroe's  administra-  Tbig  is*one  of        perSoDal  reasons  for  dwelling  on 

tion,  and  be  is  the  responsible  man  for  that  act     The  Mr  Calhoiin:  but  I  have  another,  which  I  will  now 

majority  ot  the  cabinet  were  southern,  and  if  he  had  gtate      In  the         r  1844  ag  ifc  will  be  remembered, 


made  the  stand   then   which  he  does  now,   he   must 
have  vetoed  the  act-on  the   contrary  he  went  for  it, 


when  my  fifth  election  was  coming  round  there  waa 
an  organization  against  me  in  the  State,  supported 

and  pas<ed  it— passed  the  act  of  Congress  legislating  b  e  Calhoun  man,  and  every  Calhoun  newspaper 
upon  slavery  in  territories,  and  abolishing  it  over  a  ^  the  ^tat  and  in  the  United  States.  There  was 
millioB  of  square  miles-and  now  treats  such  a  law  as  coincidence  in  their  operations  which  showed  that 
a  violation  of  the  constitution,  and  an  insult  to  the 
slave  states,  for  which  nulification,  disunion,  and  civil 
war  are  the  proper  remedies 


lam  mortified  to  dwell  upon  Mr.  Calhoun  It  is 
neither  my  habit,  nor  my  pleasure  to  speak  of  men. 
In  near  thirty  years  that  1  have  been  in  Congress  I 


they  worked  by  a  pattern.  1  knew  at  the  time  who  e 
it  all  came  from;  and  the  source  has  since  been  au 
thentically  revealed  to  me.  There  is  a  law  in  the 
moral  world  by  which  "murder  will  out."  By  virtue 
of  that  law  one  of  those  who  were  employed  to  do 
the  work  upon  me,  and  who  was  then  a  stranger  to 


."*•..  .,  .      „*•*        ..  tut;   yrutik  uisuu    uiw*  emu.    r?  LI\J   rrc»a    vuvu    <*    ov*c*ujtv*     w 

have  never  brought  the  name  of  any  man  before  the    me>  and  afterwards  repented,  revealed  the  plot   to 


public.  I  am  now  forced  to  do  it.  Mr.  Calhoun's 
resolutions  are  those  of  the  Missouri  Legislature. — 
They  are  identical  One  is  copied  from  the  other  — 
"When  the  original  is  invalidated,  the  copy  is  of  no 
avail.  I  am  answering  his  resolutions,  and  chose  to 
doit.  It  is  just  and  proper  that  1  should  do  so.  He 
is  the  prime  mover  and  head  contriver.  1  have  had 


me,  and  placed  in   my  bands  an  original  letter  of  in 
structions,  of  which  this  is  an  extract : 

"  With  regard  to  the  course  of  your  paper,  you  can 
take  the  tone  ot  the  Administration  from    *    *    * 
I  think,  however,  and   would  recommend   that  you 
would  confine  yourself  to  attacks  upon  Benton,  show- 


no  chance  to  answer  him  in  the  Senate,  and  it  will  not    ing  that  he  has  allied  himself  with  the  whigs  on  the 

;..j *    Texas  question.     Quote  Jackson's  letter  on  Texas, 

where  he  denounces  all  those  as  traitors  to  the  coun 
try  who  oppose  the  treaty.  Apply  it  to  Benton. 
Proclaim  that  Benton,  by  attacking  Mr.  Tyler  and 
his  friends,  and  driving  them  from  the  party,  is  aid- 

•  .  i  i  /•    R./I         f~M _.    j     -i v. : :j.i~ 


do  to  allow  him  to  take  a  snap  judgment  upon  me 
in  Missouri,  and  carry  disunion  resolutions  in  my  own 
state  which  he  has  been  forced  to  abandon  in  ihe 
Senate.  Duty  to  the  country  requires  me  to  answer 
him,  and  personal  reasons  reinforce  that  public  duty 


He  has  been  instigating  attacks  upon  me  for  twenty  ing  the  election  of  Mr.  Clay ;  and  charge  him  with 
years— ever  since  1  stood  by  Jackson  and  the  Union  doing  this  to  defeat  Mr.  Polk,  and  insure  himself  the 
in  the  first  war  of  nulification.  His  Duff  Green  Tele-  succession  in  1848  ;  and  claim  that  full  justice  be 

§raph  commenced  upon  me  at  the  same  time  it  done  to  the  acts  and  motives  of  John  Tyler  by  the 
id  upon  Jackson,  and  for  the  same  cause— because  leaders.  Harp  upon  these  strings.  Do  not  propose 
we  stood  by  the  Union  !  Last  summer,  in  his  own  the  union;  ''it  is  the  business  of  the  democrats  to 
state  of  South  Carolina,  where  I  never  was,  he  drag-  do  this,  and  arrange  it  to  our  perfect  satisfaction  1  I 
ged  my  name  and  that  of  (Jen  Houston  before  his  quote  here  from  our  leading  friend  at  the  south, 
constituents,  and  denounced  us  in  a  public  speech, and  Such  is  the  course  which  I  recommend,  and  which 
held  us  up  to  a  public  reprobation.  He  accused  us  of  you  can  pursue  or  not,  according  to  your  real  attach- 
defection  to  the  south — the  interpretation  being  that  ment  to  the  Administration." 

"  Look  out  for  my  leader,  of  to-morrow,  as  an  indi 
cator,  and  regard  this  letter  as  of  the  most  strict  and 
inviolate  confidence  of  character." 

I  read  this  extract  to  Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  in  February,  1*47— four  days  after 
his  fi.e-brand  resolutions  wore  introduced.  He  said  he 


we  would  not  join  him  in  bis  scheme  of  a  southern 
convention,  to  array  one  half  of  theUtiion  against  the 
other,  aud  form  a  southern  confodeiacy.  It  was  an 
audacious  attack  upon  two  absent  gentlemen,  and 
who,  as  senators,  were  entitled  to  senatorial  court 
esy  from  him.  Neither  General  Houston  nor  iny 
self  thought  it  right  to  sutler  such  an  attack  to  pass  did  not  write  it. 


I  know  he  did  not.    Neither  did  ho 


9 


write  the  papers  of  the  A.  B  plot  against  Mr.  Craw 
ford,  nor  the  resolutions  of  the  last  Missouri  General 
Assembly.  He  is  no  such  bungler  as  that.  When  a 
paw  is  to  go  into  the  fire,  he  prefers  that  of  any  cat, 
or  dog,  to  his  own.  But  he  was  Secretary  of  State 
under  Tyler  at  the  time,  and  had  dominion  over  three 
hundred  newspapers,  to  each  of  which  the  same  in 
structions  were  issued  They  were  intended  for  their 
guidance  in  the  Presidential  election,  and  in  the 
state  elections  of  1844;  and  especially  for  my  own, 
which  was  coming  on.  I  only  read  the  extract  which 
is  special  to  myself.  How  well  the  instructions  were 
obeyed  was  seen  in  this  state,  and  in  other  states, 
and  in  all  the  presses  and  politicians  which  followed 
the  lead  of  "our  leading  friend  at  the  south.'''  Ben- 
ton— Clay— Whigs— Texas— Harp  upon  these  strings, 
and  harp  they  did,  until  the  strings  were  worn  out ; 
and  then  the  harps  were  hung  upon  the  willows.  Now 
a  new  set  of  strings  are  furnished,  and  from  the  same 
"leading  friend  at  the  south,  and  the  music  recom 
mences  to  the  old  tune  set  to  new  words— Benton — 
Whigs— Abolitionism — Wilmot  Proviso" — are  now 
the  strings,  and  harp  away  again  the  word  !  and  harp 
away  they  will,  the  old  performers  and  some  new 
ones,  until  the  drooping  willows  shall  again  claim  the 
appendage  of  their  tuneless  instruments. 

I  owe  an  apology  to  General  Jackson's  memory  for 
reading  a  letter  in  which  he  is  quoted  against  me.  It 
was  unjust  to  him,  and  would  have  been  mortifying, 
to  see  his  name  quoted  against  one  of  his  best  friends 
by  one  of  his  greatest  enemies.  I  never  mortified  his 
feelings  by  letting  him  know  that  I  had  heard  how  his 
name  had  been  used  ;  but  when  near  his  end  I  sent 
him  a  kind  message  by  Major  Lewis,  which  he  re 
turned  in  the  most  affectionate  terms,  and  which  I 
think  it  right  he-»e  to  repeat.  After  giving  an  account 
of  his  visit  to  him,  and  how  he  found  him,  Major 
Lewis  continues : 

'*  He  enquired  after  many  old  friends,  and  among 
them  yourself,  desiring  to  know  when  I  had  seen  you 
last,  and  how  you  were.  1  told  him  that  1  had  seen 
you  but  a  few  days  before  i  left  Washington,  and 
that  you  were  well,  and  at  the  same  time  delivered  to 
him  your  n  essage.  He  was  evidently  much  affected, 
when  I  had  repeated  what  you  had  desired  me  to  say 
to  him.  After  a  short  pause,  he  said  :  '  /  thank  the 
Colonel  for  his  kind  recollection  of  me  in  my  old  age 
and  sore  afflictions  ;  it  would  give  me  great  pleasure 
to  see  him  once  more,  but  that  I  fear  is  impossible,  as 
my  life  is  rapidly  drawing  to  a  close.'  Here  be 
again  paused,  and  then  added  :  •  The  Colonel  was  not 
only  an  able  and  distinguished  statesman,  but  a  warm 
and  sincere  patriot,  and  his  country  is  under  great  ob 
ligation  to  him.  A  fed  grateful  for  the  able  and  effi 
cient  support  he  gave  me  during  the  whole  of  my  Ad 
ministration,  and  1  beg  you  when  you  next  see  him  to 
remember  me  to  him,  and  thank  him  in  my  name  for  his 
kind  and  affectionate  message  '  These,  I  believe,  my 
dear  sir,  are  his  precise  words ;  for,  as  they  were 
spoken  with  much  feeling,  and  in  a  deep  and  solemn 
tone  of  voice,  they  made  an  impression  on  my  mind 
that  can  never  be  effaced  " 

This  is  my  second  personal  reason  for  dwelling  on 
Mr.  Calhoun.  It  is  to  repel  his  attacks  upon  me. 
Public  duty,  in  the  innate  of  the  United  States, 
would  have  required  me  to  reply  to  his  resolutions,  if 
he  had  ever  caUed  them  up  there.  Their  passage 
through  the  M  s^ouri  Legislature  makes  it  still  more 
my  duty  to  do  .»o  These  resolutions  are  his  !  copied 
from  his,  with  -such  exactitude  of  ideas,  that  some 
transposition  or  clauses,  and  some  variation  of  phrase, 
can  deceive  no  one.  It  only  betrays  a  design  60  dis 
guise,  where  di.-guise  is  impossible.  I  have  read  the 
original :  here  is  the  copy  : 


"  RESOLUTIONS  ON  THE  SUBJECT  OF  SLAVERY 

Resolved,  by  the  General  Assemby  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,  That  the  federal  constitution  was  the  result 
of  a  compromise  between  the  conflicting  interests  of 
the  states  which  formed  it,  and  in  no  part  of  that  in 
strument  is  to  be  found  any  delegation  of  power  to 
Congress  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  ex 
cepting  some  special  provisions,  having  in  view  the 
prospective  abolition  of  the  African  slave  trade  made 
for  the  securing  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves  ;  any 
attempt,  therefore,  on  the  part  of  Congress,  to  legis 
late  on  the  subject,  so  as  to  affect  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  states,  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  or 
in  the  territories  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  violation  of  the 
principles  upon  which  that  instrument  was  founded. 

2.  That  the  territories,  acquired  by  the  blood  and 
treasure  of  the  whole  nation,  ought,  to  be  governed  for 
the  common  benefit  of  the  people  of  all  the  states,  and 
any  organization  of  the  territorial  governments  ex 
cluding  the  citizens  of  any  part  of  the  Union  from  re 
moving  to  such  territories  with  their  property,  would 
be  an  exercise  of  power,  by  Congress,  inconsistent 
with  the  spirit  upon  which  our  federal  compact  was 
based,  insulting  to  the  sovereignty  and  dignity  of  the 
states  thus  affected,  calculated  to  alienate  one  por 
tion  of  the  Union  from  another,  and  tending  ultimate 
ly  to  disunion. 

3.  That  this  General  Assembly  regard  the  conduct 
of. the  northern  states  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  as  re 
leasing  the  slaveholding  states  from  all  farther  adher- 
ance  to  the  basis  of  compromise  fixed  on  by  the  act  of 
Congress,  of  March  6,  1820— even  if  such  act  ever  did 
impose  any  obligation  upon  the  slave-holding  states, 
and  authorises  them  to  insist  upon  their  rights  under 
the  constitution  ;  but  for  the  sake  of  harmony  and  for 
the  preservation  of  our  federal  Union,  they  will  still 
sanction  the  ap  lication  of  the  principles  of  the  Mis 
souri  compromise  to  the  recent  territorial  acquisitions, 
if  by  such  concessions  future  aggressions  upon  the 
equal  rights  of  the  states  may  be  arrested,  and  the 
spirit  of  anti-slavery  fanaticism  be  extinguished 

4  The  right  to  prohibit  slavery  in  any  territory, 
belongs   exclusively   to    the  people  thereof,  and  can 
only  be  exercised  by  them  in  forming  their  constitu 
tion  for  a  state  government,  or  in  their  sovereign  ca- 
paci  y  as  an  independent  state. 

5  That  in  the   event   of  the  passage  of  any  act  of 
Congress   conflicting  with  the   principles  herein  ex 
pressed,  Missouri  will  be  found  in  hearty  co-operation 
with   the  slave-holding  states,   in   such  measures  as 
may  be   deemed  necessary  for  our  mutual  protection 
against  the  encroachment  of  northern  fanaticism. 

6.  That  our  senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and 
our  representatives  be  requested  to  act  in  conformity 
to  the  foregoing  resolutions." 

The  Calhoun  resolutions  were  entitled,  "  The  rights 
of  Congress  over  the  territories  of  the  Union  in  rela 
tion  to  slavery,"  and  were  introduced  into  the  Senate, 
February,  1847.  Those  of  the  Missouri  Legislature 
were  entitled,  "  Resolutions  in  relation  to  slavery," 
and  were  introduced  December,  1838— the  object  of 
both,  the  same,  to  deny  the  right  of  Congress  to  pre 
vent,  or  prohibit  slavery  in  territories, and  to  denounce 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union  if  it  did.  One  was  parent 
to  the  otber.  and  I  presume  no  man  will  deny  it.  And 
here  I  make  the  exception  which  truth  and  justice 
requires  from  me.  I  have  no  idea  that  the  mass  of 
the  members  who  voted  for  the  resolutions  in  the  last 
General  Assembly,  had  any  idea  that  they  were  Cal- 
houn's,  or  considered  the  dissolution  of  the  Union 
which  they  announced,  as  a  thing  in  actual  contem- 
plaiion  But  they  are  not  the  less  injurious  on  that 
account.  They  are  the  act  of  the  General  Assembly, 
and  stand  for  the  act  of  the  state,  and  bind  it  to  the 
oar  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  encourage  him  more  than 


10 


any  event  that  has  taken  place.  But  they  are  not  the 
sense  of  the  state,  nor  even  the  sense  of  all  the  mem 
bers  who  voted  for  them  The  true  sen -6  of  the  state, 
and,  1  doubt  not,  of  a  large  majority  of  the  members 
of  th«  last  Legislature,  was  faithfully  expressed  in  the 
resolves  and  instructions  of  the  previous  Legislature, 
which  I  had  received  and  obeyed,  not  only  in  the  let 
ter,  but  iu  the  spirit.  These  aie  they  : 

"  Joint  Resolution  in  relation  to  the  Missouri  Corn- 
prom  is-j  Act,  of  1820. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  peace,  permanency  and  wel 
fare  of  our  national  Union,  depend  upon  a  strict  ad 
herence  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  8th  section  of 
the  act  of  Congress  of  the  United  States,  entitled, 
'An  act  to  authorize  the  people  of  the  Missouri  Ter 
ritory  to  form  a  Constitution  and  State  Government, 
for  the  admission  of  such  state  into  the  Union  on  an 
equal  footing  with  the  original  states,  and  to  prohib 
it  slavery  in  certain  territories,'  approved  March  6th, 
1820. 

"  Resolved,  That  our  Senators  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  are  hereby  instructed,  and  our 
representatives  requested  to  vote  in  accordance  with 
the  provisions  and  the  spirit  of  the  said  eighth  sec 
tion  of  the  said  act,  in  all  the  questions  which  may 
come  before  them  in  relation  to  the  organization  of 
new  territories,  or  states  out  of  the  territory  now  be 
longing  to  the  United  States,  or  which  hereafter  may 
be  acquired,  either  by  purchase,  by  treaty,  or  by 
conquest." 

The  resolves  passed  the  General  Assembly  of  Mis 
souri  on  the  15th  day  of  February,  1847— just  four 
days  before  Calhoun  brought  into  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  his  fire-brand  resolutions,  which  I  de 
nounced  upon  the  spot — which  have  been  adopted  by 
the  Missouri  Legislature  at  the  last  session,  and  from 
which  I  now  appeal  to  the  state— the  whole  state. 
How  different— how  irreconcileably  hostile  to  each 
other — tho  two  sets  of  resolutions !  One  makes  the 
peace,  permanency,  and  welfare  of  our  national 
Union,  dependent  upon  strict  adherence  to  the  spirit 
and  terms  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  in  its  appli 
cation  to  new  territory — that  is  to  say,  upon  the  con 
stitutional  right,  and  the  equitable  exercise  of  that 
right,  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in  the  new  territory, 
and  to  admit  it  in  part,  and  prevent  it  in  part ;  the 
other  makes  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  dependent 
upon  the  same  platform  of  fact  and  principle — deny 
ing  the  right  of  Congress  to  permit,  or  prohibit,  sla 
very  in  a  territory— asserting  its  prohibition  to  be  a 
violation  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States — 
an  insult  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  states — and  tend 
ing  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Sad  contradic 
tion  this,  when  the  same  remedy  is  both  to  cure  and 
to  kill  !  and  although  the  political  doctors  may  pre 
scribe  both,  yet,  surely,  the  political  patient  who  has 
taken  one,  has  a  right  to  talk  a  little  with  the  doc 
tors  before  he  swallows  the  other. 

Yes,  citizens !  Congress  has  the  power  to  legislate 
upon  slavery  in  territories,  and  to  admit,  or  prohibit, 
its  existence,  in  fac,t,  to  compromise  it.  She  has  the 
constitutional  power,  but  can  never  hereafter  exer 
cise  it.  The  new  dogma  of  no  power  in  Congress  to 
legislate  on  the  sutgect,  has  killed  all  compromise. — 
Those  who  deny  the  power  cannot  vote  for  it  ;  it 
would  be  a  breach  of  their  oath.  Those  who  want  no 
slavery  in  the  now  territories,  will  not  vote  for  com 
promise  ;  and  thus  extremes  meet — combine  against 
the  middle— and  defeat  all  compromise.  The  resolu 
tions  of  Mr.  Calhoun  have  done  this  ;  and  to  talk 
about  compromise  now,  is  to  propose  to  call  Methusa- 
lem  from  his  tomb.  The  effect,  if  not  the  design,  of 
his  new  dogma,  was  to  kill  compromise— and  dead  it 
ia.  The  constitution  will  not  permit  him  and  his  fol 


lowers  to  vote  for  any  compromise  line.  Opposition 
to  the  extension  of  slavery  will  not,  permit  northern 
men  to  do  it  ,  and  thus  there  is  no  chance  for  any 
line.  Principle  cannot  bo  compromised  The  Mis 
souri  Compromise  was  not  of  a  principle,  but  of  inter 
est*-'  after  the  principle  was  established  The  lirst 
question  put  by  Mr  Monroe  to  his  cabinet,  was,  as 
to  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  over  the  sub 
ject.  That  being  established  in  the  affirmative,  the 
application  of  the  principle  was  matter  of  detail  and 
of  expediency. 

I  have  shown  that  Mr  Calhonn  supported  the  abo 
lition  of  skvery  in  the  territory  of  Louisiana  ;  I 
have  now  to  show  that  he  did  the  same  thing  in  a 
state — in  the  state  of  Texas.  The  case  was  this  :  In 
the  session  of  1844-'45,  two  resolutions  were  adopted 
for  the  admission  of  the  state  of  Texa^s— one,  single 
and  absolute,  with  the  Missouri  compromise  in  it  ; 
the  other  authorizing  negotiations  with  Texas  for  her 
admission  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  original 
states. 

The  Senator  from  South  Carolina  was  then  Secre 
tary  of  State,  and  virtually  President  of  the  United 
States;  and  in  that  capacity  he  seized  upon  the  ab 
solute  resolution,  selected  it,  and  applied  it  the  State 
of  Texas,  and  thus  ran  the  Missouri  compromise  line 
through  that  state,  thereby  abolishing  slavery  in  a 
state — in  a  part  of  a  state — making  one  part  of  the 
same  state  free  soil,  and  one  part  slave  soil,  and 
so  it  stands  at  this  day  !  Before  that  act  of  Mr.  Cal 
houn,  the  whole  state  of  Texas  was  slave  soil — made 
so  by  the  laws  and  constitution  of  Texas  The  ques 
tion  with  our  Congress  was,  how  to  admit  her  consis 
tently  with  her  rights  as  a  sovereign  state  1  The 
House  resolution  imposed  a  restriction — an  abolition, 
in  fact,  of  slavery,  in  all  her  territory  above  36  °  30, 
and  that  was  a  great  deal  ;  for  the  state  extended  in 
one  part  to  42  degrees  ;  the  Senate  amendment  im 
posed  nothing,  but  proposed  to  treat  with  Texas,  and 
to  admit  her  upon  agreed  terms  Mr.  Calhoun  seized 
upon  the  House  resolution,  and  adopted  it,  and  .hero- 
by  adopted  the  Missouri  compromise,  and  imposed  it, 
not  upon  a  territory,  but  upon  a  state.  He  abolished 
slavery  in  a  state!  and  in  this  he  carried  abolitionism 
further  than  any  barnburner  ever  proposed  ;  for  they 
limit  their  abolitionism  to  territories.  This  Mr. 
Calhoun  did,  and  did  as  late  as  March  the  3d,  1845. 
There  is  no  dispute  about  it.  Gen.  Houston  charged 
him  with  it  in  his  circular  address,  to  his  constituents 
at  the  late  session  of  Congress.  Every  body  was 
struck  with  the  force  of  the  accusation,  and  looked 
out  anxiously  for  M.r  Calhoun's  reply.  They  looked 
in  vain  He  d'd  not  reply,  and  could  not.  Confes 
sion  would  do  no  good,  and  denial  would  make  it 
worse.  The  fact  was  notorious,  and  of  public  record. 
He  could  not  throw  the  blame  upon  Tyler,  for  he  had 
often  boasted  in  the  Senate  that  he,  himself,  had  se 
lected  that  resolution. 

I  repeat :  I  do  not  cite  this  conduct  of  Mr.  Cal 
houn  in  abolishing  slavery  in  a  part  of  Texas,  as  au 
thority  to  justify  abolishing  slavery  in  states,  but  to 
show  that  he  went  farther  than  any  "  northern  fana 
tic"  has  ever  proposed  to  go  ;  and  further,  that  up  to 
that  date,  March  3,  1845,  he  bad  not  invented  his 
new  doctrine  of  ne  power  in  Congress  to  legislate 
upon  slavery  in  territories  ;  and  still  further,  to  show 
that  up  to  the  same  period,  he  had  not  felt  the  prick 
ing  of  that  point  of  honor— the  insult  to  the  slave 
states,  in  being  excluded  with  their  property  from  the 
soil  which  their  common  blood  and  treasure  won. 
Texas  was  all  won,  as  well  north  as  south  of  36  de 
grees  30  minutes,  by  the  same  blood  and  treasure — 
the  taxes  of  the  people  and  the  blood  df  Goliad,  the 
Alamo,  and  San  Jacinto.  And  yet  there  were  citi 
zens  of  the  eaiue  state  excluded,  by  the  act  of  Mr. 


11 


Calhoun,  from  removing  with  their  property  from  one 
part  of  it  to  another ! 

And  now  I  have  arrived  at  a  point  which  claims 
particular  attention  If  will  he  remembered  hy  all 
that  after  the  rejection  of  the  Texas  treaty  in  '44,  va 
rious  propositions  were  subrnitte  I  in  Congress  for  her 
admission,  and  that  every  proposition  contained 
some  plan  for  dividing  her  into  free  and  .*lave  terri 
tory  Every  body  will  remember  this.  Now,  1  do 
not  recollect  a  single  instance  in  which  the  constitu 
tionality  of  such  propositions  were  dispu'ed,  or  a  sin 
gle  instance  in  which  it  was  deemed  an  insult  to  the 
slaveholding  states  to  see  slavery  excluded  from  any 
part  of  it.  These  propositions  were  particularly  nu 
merous  in  the  session  of  1844-5,  which  ended  with 
two  propositions,  enacted  into  two  alternative  reso 
lutions — one  to  run  the  compromise  line  through  the 
state,  the  other  to  negociate  with  her  upon  the  sub 
ject.  Mr  Calhoun  sekcted  the  former — a  full  proof 
that  neither  himself,  nor  the  major!  y  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  nor  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  who  approved  their  resolutions,  saw  any  thing 
in  them  either  unconstitutional  or  insulting  to  the 
slave  states,  or  tending  to  disunion. 

1,  myself,  made  one  of  these  propositions,  [t  was 
to  divide  by  a  parallel  of  longitude.  It  proposed  to 
Texas  that  she  should  surrender  to  the  United  States 
all  the  territory  west  of  the  100th  parallel  of  longitude, 
which  was  to  be  free  soil — that  on  the  east 
side  to  be  slave  soil.  I  proposed  to  limit  slave 
ry  by  aline  north  and  south,  and  that  upon  negotia 
tion  with  Texas;  and  if  any  person  wishes  to  know 
my  principles  about  the  extension  of  slavery  west 
into  New  Mexico,  they  may  see  it  in  that  proposi 
tion.  I  thought  it  right  then  ;  and  do  not  change  my 
opinions  of  right  to  suit  calculations  or  circumstances. 
What  is  more,  I  never  heard  of  any  body  that  thought 
I  was  wrong  then  ;  and  the  only  difference  between 
my  position  and  Mr  Calhoun's  act,  was,  that  I  was 
in  favor  of  limiting  slavery  by  a  line  drawn  north  and 
south,  and  that  by  negotiation  with  the  sfate  to  be 
attached.  Mr.  Calhoun  divided  the  free  and  slave 
aoil  of  the  state  itself  by  a  line  drawn  east  and  west, 
and  accordingly  did  so  divide  it ;  and  the  state  so 
stands  at  this  day.  The  difference  between  us  was 
the  difference  between  a  longitudinal  and  latitudinal 
line,  and  between  taking  the  boundary  of  a  state, 
upon  negotiation  with  her,  for  the  boundary  between 
free  and  slave  soil,  and  running  the  line  through  the 
state  itself. 

It  is  absurd  to  deny  to  Congrees  the  power  to  le 
gislate  as  it  pleases  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in 
territories  ;  it  has  exercised  the  power,  and  with  the 
sanction  of  all  authorities,  state  and  federal,  from 
the  foundation  to  the  present  time,  and  never  had  it 
been  questioned  until  Mr.  Calhoun  put  forth  those 
unfortunate  resolutions,  from  which  be  had  to  back 
out  under  his  own  mortifying  contradictions.  It  is 
absurd  to  claim  it  for  the  territories.  They  have  no 
form  of  government  but  that  which  Congress  gives 
them,  and  no  legislative  power  but  that  which  Con 
gress  allows  them.  Congress  governs  the  territory 
as  it  pleases,  and  in  a  way  incompatible  with  the 
constitution,  and  of  this  any  state  that  has  been  a 
territory  is  a  complete  example,  and  our  own  as  much 
so  as  any. 

Congress  has  the  power  to  prohibit,  or  admit  sla 
very,  and  no  one  else.  It  is  not  in  the  territories  ;  for 
their  governments  are  the  creatures  of  Congress,  and 
its  deputies,  so  far  as  any  legislative  power  is  con 
cerned,  it  is  not  in  the  states  separately  ;  and  this 
leads  to  one  of  the  grossest  delusions  which  has  grown 
out  of  the  political  metaphysics  of  Mr.  Calhouu.  He 
claims  aright  for  the  citizens  of  the  slave  states  to 
remove  to  New  Mexico  and  California  with  their 


slave  property.  This  is  a  profound  error.  The  pro 
perty  is  io  the  law  which  creates  it,  and  the  law  can 
not  be  carried  an  inch  beyond  the  limits  of  the  ^tate 
which  enacts  it  No  citizen  of  any  state  can  carry 
any  property,  derived  from  a  law  of  that  state,  an 
inch  beyopd  the  boundary  line  of  the  state  which 
creates  it.  The  instant  he  passes  that  boundary,  to 
settle  with  his  property,  it  becomes  eubj  ct  to  another 
law,  if  there  is  one,  and  is  without  law  if  there  is  not. 
This  ia  the  case  with  all — with  the  northern  man, 
with  his  corporation  and  franchises — with  the  south 
ern  man  and  his  slaves.  This  is  the  law  of  the  land, 
and  let  any  one  try  it  that  disputes  it.  We,  in  Mis 
souri,  are  well  situated  to  make  the  experiment  con 
veniently,  and  in  all  its  forms.  Let  any  one  of  Mr. 
Calhoun's  followers  try  it,  and  he  will  soon  see  what 
becomes  of  his  property,  his  slave  property.  Let  him 
remove  to  Iowa  ;  he  will  meet  there  the  8th  section 
of  the  act  of  Congress  of  March  6th,  1820 — the  Cal 
noun  proviso  ;  and  will  in  vain  invoke  state  rights 
and  Missouri  statutes.  Let  him  remove  to  Illinois  ; 
he  will  find  there  the  Jefferson  proviso,  ir  the  form  of 
the  ordinance  of  1787-  Let  him  remove  to  Kentucky  j 
the  law  of  Kentucky  takes  hold  of  his  slaves,  and  con 
verts  the  chattel  interest  of  the  Missouri  slave  into 
real  estate  ;  for,  in  Kentucky,  slaves  are  now 
made  real  estate,  and  placed  on  the  footing 
of  land,  as  they  are  in  Louisiana.  Let  him 
move  into  Arkansas,  his  chattel  slave  will  remain 
chattel,  but  by  virtue  of  Arkansas  law,  and  subject  to 
its  regulation.  Finally,  let  him  remove  west,  and 
settle  in  the  territory  of  Nebraska,  when  it  shall  be 
created  ;  and  the  Calhoun  proviso  will  be  on  him 
again,  and  his  property  will  evaporate.  Thus  a  citi 
zen  of  Missouri  cannot  get  out  of  his  own  state,  on 
any  one  of  its  four  sides,  with  his  slave  property, 
without  having  its  character  altered,  or  holding  it  by 
another  law  ;  and  twice  he  will  lose  it — on  two  sides 
of  his  state — on  contiguous  territory — he  will  lose  it 
under  an  act  of  Congress,  which  became  a  law  under 
the  advice  and  opinion  of  Mr,  Calhoun,  in  his  high 
character  of  cabinet  minister,  and  assisting  at  a  coun 
cil  armed  with  the  veto  power.  This  is  the  case  of 
the  Missouri  citizen,  and  has  been  ever  since  Missou 
ri  was  a  state  ;  and  no  one  ever  thought  the  state 
sovereignty  insulted,  or  felt  Rimself  bound  to  dis 
solve  the  Union  on  acoountof  it. 

No  !  the  citizens  of  the  states  cannot  carry  the  laws 
of  their  states  with  them  to  Oregon  and -California; 
and  if  they  could,  what  a  Babel  of  slave  law  would 
be  there  !  Fourteen  states,  each  carrying  a  code  dif 
ferent,  in  many  respects,  from  each  other  ;  and  all  to 
be  exercised  by  the  same  judges,  in  territories  where 
there  is  no  slave  law.  What  absurdity!  No  such 
thing  can  be  done  The  only  effect  of  carrying  slaves 
there  would  be  to  pet  them  free.  It  would  be  in  vain 
to  invoke  the  constitution,  and  say  it  acknowledges 
property  in  slaves.  It  does  so  :  but  that  is  confined 
to  states. 

And  now  we  arrive  at  substance — at  a  practical 
point.  Congress  has  the  constitutional  power  to  abol 
ish  slavery  in  territories  ;  but  she  has  no  slave  terri 
tory  in  which  to  exercise  the  power.  We  have  no 
territory  but  the  remainder  of  Louisiana  north  and 
west  of  Missouri, — that  in  California,  New  Mexico 
and  Oregon, — and  that  north  of  Wisconsin,  now  Mi- 
nesota.  In  Louisiana,  north  and  west  of  us,  it  was 
abolished  by  Congn  ss  in  1820.  In  the  territory  north 
of  Wisconsin,  now  Minesota,  it  was  abolished  by  the 
Jefferson  proviso  of  1787.  In  Oregon  it  was  abolished 
by  Congress  in  1848,  by  what  you  may  call  the  Ben- 
ton  proviso,  if  you  please.  In  New  Mexico  and  Cali 
fornia  it  was  abolished  by  the  Mexican  government 
in  1829 — confirmed  in  1837,  and  again  in  1844.  Here 
are  the  decrees,  the  originals  of  which  I  have  read  ia 


12 


the  authentic  bound  volumes  of  the  Mexican  laws, 
and  which  were  produced  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  by  Mr.  Dix.  of  New  York. 

[Translation.] 
ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY. 

"The  President  of  the  United  Mexican  States  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  republic  : 

"  Desiring  to  signalize,  in  the  year  1829,  the  anni 
versary  of  independence  by  an  act  of  national  justice 
and  beneficence,  which  may  tend  to  the  benefit  and 
support  of  so  important  a  good  ;  which  may  strength 
en  more  and  more  the  public  tranquillity ;  which  may 
co-operate  in  the  aggrandizement  of  the  republic  ; 
and  which  may  restore  to  an  unfortunate  portion  of 
its  inhabitants  the  sacred  rights  which  nature  gave 
them,  and  the  nation  protected  by  wise  and  just 
laws,  in  conformity  to  the  provision  of  the  30th  arti 
cle  of  the  constitutive  act ;  exercising  the  extraor 
dinary  powers  which  are  conceded  to  me,  1  do  de 
cree  : 

1.  Slavery  is  abolished  in  the  republic. 

2.  Those  who    until  to-day  have  been  considerd 
slaves  are  consequently  free. 

3.  When  the  condition  of  the  treasury  will  permit, 
the  owners  of  the  slaves  will  be  indemnified  in  the  man 
ner  which  shall  be  provided  for  by  law. 

Mexico,  16th  September,  1829,  A.  D. 

JOSE  MARIA  DE  BOCANEGRA. 

LAW*  of  1837. 

[Translation.]— Slavery  is  forever  abolished,  with 
out  any  exception,  in  the  whole  republic  ;  April  5th, 
1837  [Collection  of  Laws  and  Decrees  of  the  General 
Congress  of  the  United  Mexican  States,  volume  8, 
page  201.] 

[Translation.] — The  masters  of  slaves  manumitted 
by  the  present  law  or  by  the  decree  of  the  15th  of 
September,  1829,  shall  be  indemnified.  *fec.  [Collec 
tion  of  Laws  and  Decrees,  &c  ,  vol.8,  page  201  ] 

Ibis  is  the  decree,  and  this  is  the  act  of  Congress 
confirming  it,  abolishing  slavery  throughout  the  Mex 
ican  Republic.  The  Constitution  of  1844,  does  not 
abolish  slavery,  for  that  was  done  before,  but  pro 
hibits  future  establistfment.  Thus,  there  is  no  slavery 
now  in  Mexico  and  California  ;  and  consequently  none 
in  any  territory  belonging  to  the  United  States  ;  and 
consequently,  nothing  practical,  or  real,  in  the  whole 
slavery  question,  for  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to  quarrel  about.  There  is  no  slavery  now  bylaw 
in  any  territory  ;  and  it  cannot  get  thereby  law,  ex 
cept  by  act  of  Congress  ;  and  no  such  act  will  be  pas 
sed,  or  even  asked  for.  The  dogma  of,  no  power  in 
Congress  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in  territories,  kills 
that  pretension.  Mo  legal  establishment  of  slavery 
in  California  and  New  Mexico  is  then  to  be  looked 
for.  That  is  certain.  Equally  certain  it  will  never 
be  established  in  either  of  them  in  the  point  of  fact. 
The  people  of  both  territories— the  old  inhabitants- 
are  unanimous  against  it. 

Of  the  new  emigrants,  all  those  from  Europe,  Asia, 
Mexico,  Central  and  South  America,  and  all  those 
from  the  non  slaveholding  part  of  the  United  States, 
will  be  unanimously  against  it.  There  remains,  then, 
to  overbalance  all  this  unanimous  mass,  only  the  emi- 
grants'from  the  slaveholdiug  parts  of  the  United 
States — in  itself  the  smallest  branch  of  the  emigra 
tion,  and  it  divided  on  the  question — many  going  for 
the  express  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  slavery — and 
very  few  so  far  in  love  with  it  as  to  go  that  distance 
for  the  pleasure  of  having  a  lawsuit  with  his  own  ne 
gro,  apd  with  the  certainty  of  coming  out  second 
best  in  the  contest.  There  is,  then,  no  slavery,  at 
this  time,  eHhcrin  New  Mexico  or  California,  in  law 
or  in  fact ;  and  will  never  be  either  in  law  or  in  fact. 


What,  then,  is  all  the  present  uproar  about*?  Ab 
straction  ! — the  abstract  right  of  doing  what  cannot 
be  done!— the  insult  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  states, 
where  there  is  no  insult !  — all  abstraction !  and  no 
rea'ity,  substance,  or  practice  in  it. 

The  Romans  had  a  cluss  of  disputes  which  they 
called  de  lana  C'iprina — that  is  to  sa  ,  about  goat's 
wool  ;  and  as  the  goat  has  no  wool,  the  dispute  was 
about  nothing.  So  it  is  of  this  dispute  among  us 
about  excluding  slavery  from  New  Mexico  and  Cali 
fornia.  There  is  none  there  to  exclude,  and  the  dis 
pute  now  raging  is  about  nothing. 

The  Missouri  resolutions  were  copied  from  those 
of  Calhoun  ;  and  I  do  not  believe  there  exceeded  half 
a  dozen  members  in  the  two  Houses,  all  told,  who 
were  in  the  secret,  either  of  the  origin  or  design  of 
that  proceeding.  They  were  copied  from  Calhoun  ; 
and  to  see  their  design  you%  must  know  his  His 
were  aimed  at  the  Union — at*  the  harmony  and  sta 
bility  of  the  Union — and  at  the  members  from  the 
slaveholding  states  who  would  not  follow  his  lead — 
myself  especially.  This  makes  it  my  duty  to  speak 
to  him,  and  to  show  his  design  in  bringing  forward 
the  resolutions  from  which  he  was  so  suddenly  backed 
out  in  the  Senate,  and  which  some  half  a  dozen  mem 
bers  have  succeeded  in  passing  through  the  Missouri 
Legislature  This  carries  me  rather  far  back,  but  I 
will  make  rapid  work,  and  short  work. 

Mr.  Calhoun  came  into  public  life  to  be  President 
of  the  United  States.  The  weird  sisters,  in  the  shape 
of  the  old  man  that  taught  him  grammar,  had  whis 
pered  in  his  ear—  thou,  shall  be  President.  Unonthat 
oracular  revelation  he  commenced  his  political  career, 
and  has  toiled  at  its  fulfilment  for  forty  years— at  first 
openly,  and  it  may  be  fairly,  by  ,  utting  himself  at 
the  head  of  all  the  movements  which  promised  ad 
vancement  in  the  public  favor.  In  1816  protection  of 
domestic  industry  was  popular  :  he  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  protective  policy,  and  went  for  the  mini 
mum  provision — the  cotton  minimum — which  was  the 
father  of  all  the  rest,  and  the  ouly  real  injury  to  ihe 
cotton  growers,  by  suppressing  for  thirty  >  ears  thafi 
class  ot  cotton  goods  which  was  of  most  universal  use, 
and  of  the  largest  cotton  consumption — the  corduroys 
and  velvets,  so  universally  worn  before  1816 — so  to 
tally  suppressed  under  the  Calhoun  minimum  of  that 
year— and  just  beginning  to  appear  again  under  the 
tariff  of  1846.  At  the  same  time  (1816)  a  national 
bank — the  state  banks  having  failed,  and  brought 
odium  on  the  state  institutions— was  much  called  for  ; 
Mr  Calhoun  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  call,  and 
carried  through  the  bank  charter. 

About  the  same  time  internal  improvement,  by  the 
federal  government,  became  popular:  he  seized  upon 
the  subject ;  and  in  1823,  as  Secretary  of  War,  made 
an  elaborate  report  in  favor  of  a  general  system  of 
roads  and  f-anals,  pervading  all  parts  of  the  Union. 
In  1819—20  the  Missouri  controversy  raged,  and  the 
whole  north  stood  up  as  one  man  for  curtailing  the 
area  of  slave  soil:  betook  the  free  soil  current — and 
expunged  slave  soil  from  all  the  territories  of  the 
United  States  by  joining  in  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
Upper  Louisiana,  giving  Texas  to  the  King  of  Spain, 
and  giving  the  rest  of  Louisiana  to  the  Indians.  At 
the  same  time  Jackson  became  the  favorite  of  the  peo 
ple  for  President :  he  withheld  and  postponed  his  own 
pretensions  to  the  presidency,  became  the  advocate  of 
Jackson,  went  upon  bis  ticket,  and  was  elected  Vice 
President  with  him.  But  this  was  the  end  of  his  po 
pular  movements  to  gain  the  presidency.  lie  expect 
ed  to  succeed  Jackson,  and  that  he  would  only  have 
to  wait  and  strve  eight  years.  That  was  only  one 
year  longer  than  Jacob  had  to  wait,  and  serve  Laban 
for  Rach«  1.  But  oh  !  the  disappointments  in  love 
and  politics !  Like  Jacob,  when  he  woke  up,  he 


13 


found  it  was  Leah !  a  little  magician  of  the  north  had 
got  into  the  bed,  and  was  to  be  Jackson's  successor  ! 
Unlike  J  cob,  be  could  not  wait  and  serve  another 
long  eight  years,  and  determined  to  clutch  the  prize 
at  once. 

Then  came  nullification  No  1,  (pretexed  by  that 
tariff  of  which  he  himself  was  the  main  au'hor,)  and 
that  scheme  for  dissolving  the  Union  which  Jackson's 
proclamation  put  down  The  tariff  failed  to  bear 
him  through  :  a  more  inflammable  subject  was  want 
ed — and  was  found  in  the  sensitive  question  of  slavery. 
Then  came  that  long  succession  of  abolition  plots  for 
blowing  up  slavery  in  the  United  Srate?,  compared  to 
which  all  the  popish  plots  in  England  for  blowing  up 
the  Protestant  religion — the  gunpowder,  rye-house, 
meal  tub,  and  oth^r  plots,  so  formidable  in  their  day, 
— were  tame  and  impotent  inventions.  First,  there 
was  the  London  abolition  plot  of  Ashbel  Smith, 
John  Andrews,  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  for  lighting  the 
train  of  abolition  in  Texas,  and  tberce  running  it 
into  the  United  States,  where  it  was  to  explode  and 
blow  all  up  !  and  to  prevent  which  it  became  a  case 
of  "self-defence,"  admitting  of  no  delay,  to  jerk 
Texas  instanter,  by  treaty,  out  of  their  hands,  before 
the  plot  was  ripe— something  like  jerking  the  fuse  out 
of  the  loaded  bomb  before  it  would  explode. 

The  treaty  did  not  stand  the  jerk,  and  was  broke  ; 
and  the  plot  evaporated  without  harm  Duff  Green 
had  been  paid  a  thousand  dollars  by  the  Tyler  admin 
istration,  out  of  the  United  States  treasury,  for 
bringing  that  plot  from  London  ;  but  it  was  money 
lost.  Then  came  the  World's  Convention  plot,  also 
located  in  London,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
throughout  the  world— the  United  States  inclusively, 
but  it  came  up  feebly,  and  had  no  run  Then  came 
the  incendiary  transportation  mail  matter  plot:  and 
that,  for  a  while,  threatened  to  break  up  the  trans 
portation  of  the  mails,  and  to  leave  the  two  halves  of 
the  Union  in  a  state  of  non-intercourse  It  ripened 
into  a  bill  for  searching  the  mails  ;  and  then  expired. 
Then  came  the  incendiary  petitions  plot :  that  occu- 
pi^d  the  time  of  Congress  for  several  years,  and  con 
siderably  alarmed  the  country,  until  everybody  saw 
that  it  was  a  game,  performed  by  two  sets  of  player?, 
playing  into  each  others  hands,  for  their  own  benefit 
at  home,  and  getting  up  an  agitation  of  which  the 
public  peace  and  the  public  business  was  the  victim. 
It  then  died  out  Thus  ail  the  abolition  plots — pre 
texts  for  a  second  rmlifieat ion — failed  They  were 
•what  the  New  York  law  reform  statute,  abolishing 
latin,  interprets  the  writ  cfrie  exeat  to  be — no  go. 

In  the  meantime,  there  was  an  ep:sode  which  will 
require  a  full  history  some  day,  but  which  can  only 
be  hinted  at  no  v,  to  complete  the  picture,  ft  hap 
pened  that  after  Mr  Van  Buren's  election,  Mr  Cal- 
noun  became  a  sort  of  a  supporter  of  his  administra 
tion  ;  and,  upon  the  principle  that  one  good  turn 
deserves  another,  expected  his  support  for  the  succes 
sion.  'J  hat  involved  a  scheme  for  northern  votes. 
There  was  a  slave  subject  which  prevented  it— the 
liberation  of  American  slaves  by  the  British  authori 
ties  in  the  Bahama  islands  who  had  revolted  against 
their  owners,  committed  murder  and  piracy,  and  car 
ried  their  master's  vessels  into  British  ports.  When 
these  enormities  occurred,  Mr.  Calhouti  took  up  the 
cause  of  the  south  with  justice  and  vehemence,  and  I 
stood  by  him.  When  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  be 
come  Van  Buren's  successor,  he  abandoned  the  south, 
and  left  me  and  a  few  others  alone,  by  the  side  of  the 
ill-fated  owners  of  the  Comet,  Encomium,  Creole, 
Enterprise,  and  others. 

In  his  new-born  zeal  then  to  please  the  north,  he 
shot  ahead — he  must  always  be  ahead — beatine 
Woodbury,  Buchanan,  and  other  northern  senators 
in  his  votes  and  speeches  on  the  northern  side  of  the 


question.  Some  view  of  this  may  be  seen  in  my 
speech  on  the  Ashburton  treaty ;  but  the  subject  re 
quires  a  separate  examination,  and  thall  receive  it, 
but  not  now.  It  will  be  a  curious  episode,  and  will 
place  Mr  Calhoun  a  second  time  where  he  was  in 
1819-'20 — on  the  northern  side  of  the  sla.very  ques 
tion  ;  but  only  for  a  brief  space.  Mr.  Van  Buren 
preferred  to  try  to  be  his  own  successor  ;  and  the 
Texas  treaty  having  gone  over  without  making  its 
author  President,  and  the  Mexican  war  promising  a 
large  crop  of  popular  Presidential  candidates,  a  new 
political  test  became  necessary  ;  and.  the  tariff  ques 
tion  being  set1  led  by  the  act  of  1846,  a  recourse  to 
slavery  and  abolition  became  indispensable.  Hence 
the  firebrand  resolutions  of  1847 — a  firebrand  which 
has  had  the  singular  fate  of  dying  out  where  it  \.aa 
put,  and  of  raising  a  conflagration  a  thousand  miles 
off. 

The  design  of  these  resolutions  then  point  directly 
to  the  subversion  of  the  Union  It  is  their  language. 
And  for  what  cause  1  For  a  cause  so  absurd  acd  un 
founded,  so  contradicted  by  his  own  conduct,  and  by 
the  whole  action  of  the  government  from  its  founda 
tion  to  the  present  day,  that,  being  confronted  with 
his  own  conduct,  he  has  never  dared  to  ask  a  vote 
upon  his  resolutions. 

I  have  no  new  opinions  to  express  about  the  design 
of  those  resolutions.  I  gave  my  opinion  of  them  at 
the  time  they  were  introduced,  and  in  many  ways, 
and  among  the  rest  in  a  letter  to  the  people  of  Ore 
gon,  and  another  to  the  people  of  Howard  county. 
The  people  of  Oregon  had  formed  a  provisional  gov 
ernment,  and  inserted  in  their  articles  of  government, 
a  fundamental  act  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery,  co 
pied  from  the  Jefferson  proviso  of  1787.  The  House  of 
Representatives  passed  a  bill  in  the  session  of  '46  —'47, 
to  establish  a  territorial  government  for  Oregon, 
sanctioning  their  articles  of  government  with  the 
provi  o  against  slavery  in  it  This  bill  was  defeated 
in  the  Senate  just  twelve  davs  after  Mr.  Calhoun 
brought  in  his  firebrand  resolutions  ;  and  in  giving 
an  account  of  that  defeat  to  the  people  of  Oregon,  in 
a  letter  which  was  then  published,  1  said : 

"  Your  fundamental  act  against  that  institution, 
copied  from  the  ordinance  of  1787— the  work  of  the 
south  in  the  great  day  of  the  south  prohibiting  slave 
ry  in  a  territory  far  less  northern  than  yours — will 
not  be  abrogated  !  nor  is  that  the  intention  of  the 
prime-mover  of  the  amendment.  Upon  the  record, 
the  judiciary  committee  of  the  Senate  is  the  author  of 
that  amendment  ;  but  not  so  the  fa^-t  That  com 
mittee  is  only  midwife  to  it.  Its  author  is  the  same 
mind  that  generated  the  '  firebrand  resolutions,'  of 
which  Isend  you  a  copy  ;  and  the  amendment  is  its 
legitimate  derivation.  Oregon  is  not  the  object  !  — 
The  most  rabid  propagandist  of  slavery  cannot  ex 
pect  to  plant  it  on  the  shores  of  Pacific  in  the  lati 
tude  of  Wisconsin  and  tic  Lake  of  the  Woods  A 
home  agitation,  for  election,  and  disunion  purposes,  is 
all  that  is  intended  by  thrusting  that  firebrand  ques 
tion  into  your  bill  ;  and,  at  the  next  session,  when  it 
is  thrust,  in  again,  we  will  scourge  it  out." 

A  home  agitation  for  election,  and  disunion  purpo 
ses,  is  what  1  told  them  the  object  of  these  resolutions 
was.  Cass  and  Butler  were  defeated  upon  tests  fram 
ed  out  of  these  resolutions  ;  but  the  election  part  of 
th  object  was  against  all  northern  men,  and  to  bring 
forward  Mr.  Calhoun  himself  as  the  southern  candi 
date.  Failing  in  this  object  to  get  himself  nomina 
ted, the  next  design  of  the  resolutions  came  into  play; 
and  this  brings  me  to  the  meeting  of  southern  members 
of  Congress  got  up  and  conducted  by  Mr.  Calhoun. 
It  was  a  meeting  with  closed  doors — every  citizen, 
not.  an  actual  member  from  a  slaveholding  state,  was 
excluded— even  Mr.  Bibb,  of  Kentucky,  a  former 


14 


Senator,  and  who  was  turned  out  under  the  ppecial 
decision  of  Mr.  Calhoun  himself.  Members  came 
upon  invitation.  I  was  not  invited,  and  would  not 
have  gone  if  1  had  been.  Gen.  Houston  was  not  in 
vited,  but  went  without  invitation,  and  moved  the 
opening  of  the  doors  to  the  public,  which  was  voted 
down.  1  have  been  told  that  disunion  was  expressly 
discussed  ;  and  that  would  seem  to  flow,  as  a  regular 
consequence,  from  the  fundamental  proposition  of  the 
original  address,  drawn  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  assimi 
lating  its  importance  to  the  declaration  of  wrongs 
which  separated  the  American  Colonies  from  Great 
Britain,  and  give  a  higher  importance  to  the  present 
Crisis,  as  going  beyond  the  former,  and  involving  not 
merely  rights,  but  life  and  property — every  thing — 
the  safety  of  the  sou'h,  and  all.  The  paragraph 
which  contained  this  declaration  was  this  : 

«'  We  whose  names  are  hereunto  annexed,  address 
you  in  discharge  of  what  we  believe  to  be  a  solemn 
duty  on  the  most  important  subject  ever  presented  for 
your  consideration,  not  excepting  the  declaration 
which  separated  you  andthe  other  United  Colonies 
from  the  parent  country,  That  involved  your  inde 
pendence  ;  but  this  your  all,  not  excepting  even  your 
safety.  We  allude  to  the  conflict  between  the  two 
great  sections  of  the  Union,  growing  out  of  a  differ 
ence  of  feeling  and  opinion  in  reference  to  the  rela 
tion  existing  between  the  two  races — the  European 
and  African — which  inhabit  the  southern  section,  and 
the  acts  of  aggression  and  encroachment  to  which  it 
has  led." 

From  this  strong  language,  exalting  the  crisis  above 
that  of  the  revolution,  it  would  naturally  be  supposed 
that  the  remedy  was  to  be  the  same  ;  and  so  it  wasun- 
derstood  by  many,  and  the  words  struck  out.  The  same 
conclusion  would  seem  naturally  to  result  from  a  con 
cluding  part  of  the  address,  in  which  unanimity  was 
invoked,  consequences  disregarded,  the  Union  treated 
as  hypothetically  worse  than  useless,  called  a  sword 
to  assault,  and  not  a  shield  to  defend,  and  in  which  it 
was  !eft  to  the  north  to  count  its  value  This  is  the 
paragraph  which  contained  these  expressions: 

"As  the  assailed,  you  would  stand  justified  by  all 
laws,  human  and  divine,  in  repelling  a  blow  so  dan 
gerous,  without  looking  to  consequences,  and  to  resort 
to  all  means  necessary  for  that  purpose.  Your  assail 
ants,  and  not  you,  would  be  responsible  for  conse 
quences.  [It  would  be  for  them,  and  not  for  you,  to 
count  the  value  of  the  Union.  Without  your  rights, 
it  would  be  worse  than  useless — a  sword  to  assault, 
and  not  a  shield  to  defend  you  !"] 

The  most  significant  nf  these  phrases  were  struck 
out,  doubtless  because  they  more  than  squinted— in 
fact  looked  straight--at  disunion.  The  stricking  out  of 
these  passages  shows  that  the  majority  of  the  meet 
ing  dissented  from  Mr.  Calhoun's  views,  and  caused 
to  be  expunged  from  his  address  the  anti-union 
passages.  The  majority  were  doubtless  in  favor  of 
preserving  the  Union ;  but  that  is  not  the  present  in 
quiry.  The  present  inquiry  is  into  Mr.  Calhoun's 
designs — his  designs  in  his  resolutions  of  February, 
1847  :  and  every  thing  that  occurred  in  the  meeting, 
and  especially  tha  passages  expunged  from  his  ad 
dress,  show  that  his  deliberate  design  was  what  his  re- 
eolutions  hypothetically  imported— the  subversion  of 
the  Union.  The  paragraph  assimilating  the  condi 
tion  of  the  south  in  relation  to  the  north  to  that  of 
the  colonies  at  the  declaration  of  independeEce,  was 
awfully  significant,  and  dreadfully  false.  No  wonder 
it  was  expunged. 

Compare  the  list  of  grievances  which  he  drew  up, 
and  which  constituted  the  staple  of  his  address  that 
was  published— compare  this  with  the  list  of  grieran- 
oes  against  Great  Britain,  drawn  by  Mr.  Jefferson 


and  prefixed  to  the  declaration  of  independence— and 
then  see  what  truth  there  was  in  Mr.  Calhoun's  reck 
less  comparison.  According  to  his  assertion  the 
southern  grievances  were  not  only  equal,  but  greater 
than  those  enumerated  by  Mr.  Jefferson.  The 
declaration  of  independence  is  in  every  house ;  but 
there  is  another  place  where  the  list  is  more  perfect — 
the  preamble  to  the  constitution  of  Virginia— also 
drawn  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  where  an  item  suppres 
sed  in  the  national  declaration  of  independence,  to 
gratify  some  extreme  southern  friends,  was  retained 
in  all  its  vigor  by  his  native  state.  That  item  was 
this.  "By  prompting  our  negroes  to  rise  in  arms 
among  us — those  very  negroes,  whom,  by  an  inhuman 
use  of  his  negative,  he  hath  refused  his  permission  to 
exclude  by  law" 

What  a  contrast!  The  king's  refusal  to  authorize 
the  exclusion  of  slaves  from  Virginia,  then  one  of 
the  causes  of  separation,  inserted  in  her  declaration 
of  wrongs,  prefixed  to  her  constitution — the  nominal 
exclusion  by  law  of  slavery  from  a  territory  where  it 
is  not,  and  cannot  be,  now  a  cause  of  separation  of 
the  southern  from  the  northern  states !  Surely  the 
Father  of  his  country  had,  in  his  mind's  eye,  this  ad 
dress  of  Mr.  Calhoun  when,  in  his  farewell  to  his 
children,  he  warned  them  against  the  misrepresenta 
tions  of  designing  men  who,  for  their  own  ends,  would 
raise  up  sectional  differences  for  the  purpose  of  alien- 
ating  one  part  of  the  Union  from  another.  His  pro 
phetic  vision  foresaw  the  present  state  of  things 
when  he  wrote  this  paragraph : 

"  In  contemplating  the  causes  which  may  disturb 
our  Union,  it  occurs  as  a  matter  of  serious  concern, 
that  any  ground  should  have  been  furnished  for  char 
acterizing  parties  by  geographical  discriminations — 
Northern  aud  Southern — Atlantic  and  Western  ; 
whence  designing  men  may  endeavor  to  excife  a  be 
lief  that  there  is  a  real  difference  of  local  interests 
and  views  Oneof  the  expedients  of  party  to  acquire 
influence  within  particular  districts,  is  to  misrepre 
sent  the  opinions  and  aims  of  other  districts  You 
cannot  shield  yourself  too  much  against  the  jealousies 
and  heart  burnings  which  spring  from  these  misrepre 
sentations  ;  they  tend  to  render  alien  to  each  other 
those  who  ought  to  he  bound  together  by  fraternal 
affection  " 

This  malediction  of  the  father  of  his  country  falls 
upon  Calhoun — falls  upon  the  twenty  years'  promo 
ter  of  hatred  and  alienation  between  the  north  and 
the  south.  But,  why  multiply  proofs.  From  the  ful 
ness  of  the  heart,  the  mouth  speaker h  !  and  foe  twen 
ty  years  the  mouth  of  Calhoun  has  poured  fourth  the 
language  of  disunion.  Surely  the  Holy  Scriptures  are 
right:  and  deadly  enmity  to  the  Union  must  be  in 
that  heart  from  which  its  death  knell  is  daily  sounded. 

Mr.  Calhoun  is  baulked  in  his  mode  of  proceeding. 
He  finds  a  difficulty  in  the  first  step.  The  experience 
of  the  first  nullification  has  convinced  him  that  one 
state,  and  that  a  small  one,  is  too  narrow  a  founda 
tion  to  build  upon.  He  needs  a  broader  foundation  ; 
and  ever  since  the  Texas  annexation  treaty  of  1844, 
he  has  manoeuvred  for  a  southern  convention,  in  or- 
der£to  unite  all  the  southern  states  under  his  control. 
He/wants  a  convention.  He  is  great  upon  a  small 
body — where  he  can  work  upon  individuals  in  detail 
and  by  units.  He  is  great  then.  A  southern  con 
vention  was  his  plan  at  the  rejection  of  the  Texas 
treaty  in  1844  ;  [  contributed  to  break  up  that  plan. 
At  rhe  passage  of  the  Oregon  bill,  in  the  summer  of 
1844,  he  tried  for  the  convention  again  ;  and  a  sub 
scription  paper  was  cautiously  circulated  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  lor  signatures.  Jt  was  "  no  go." 
But  few  subscribers  were  got,  and  the  paper  was  sup 
pressed. 


15 


This  brings  ua  to  the  last  winter's  work— the  meet 
ing  convoked  of  the  members  of  'Congress  from  the 
slaveholding  states,  its  object  has  been  stated,  and  I 
do  not  repeat  it  I  only  name  it  as  a  part  of  the  ma 
chinery  for  getting  up  a  southern  convention.  It  was 
in  fact  a  sort  of  southern  convention  itself— a  caucus 
convention — intended  to  pave  the  way  for  the  real 
convention,  at  d  to  call  it  It  was  intended  to  com 
bine  whigs  and  democrats,  and  bring  the  whole  under 
the  control  of  the  head  Contriver.  It  was  a  failure. 
The  wh'gs  hauled  off  from  it :  only  a  part  of  the  de 
mocracy  remained,  and  many  of  them  for  innocent 
and  laudable  purposes.  Nothing  came  from  this  con 
gress  convention  but  an  emasculated  address,  deprived 
of  the  Arenoin  in  its  head,  and  of  the  sting  iu  its  tail, 
and  proposing  nothing.  The-  contrivance  for  the 
southern  convention  had  failed  again:  and  his  last 
resource  was  in  state  legislatures,  and  county  meet 
ings.  The  fire  brand  resolutions  were  to  be  adopted 
in  state  legislatures,  and  county  ineetiags  got  up 
to  stimulate  the  people  1  omit  other  states. — 
The  resoluiions  were  adopted  in  Missouri  immedi 
ately  after  the  failure  of  the  Congress  caucus,  and 
after  the  publication  of  the  address  — about  as  soon  as 
they  could  be  known.  The  resolutions  bad  laid  in  a 
torpid  state  all  winter.  They  slept  during  the  time 
they  should  have  been  awake,  and  in  ray  hands  at 
Washington,  if  they  were  intended  fo  my  guidance. 
They  were  passed  after  Congress  adjourned,  and  the 
county  meetings  immediately  started.  This  was  in 
accordance  to  the  practice  elsewhere  ;  and,  if  they 
still  go  on,  should  conform  to  Accomac,  which  have 
at  least  the  merit  of  doing  a  wrong  thing  in  the  right 
way.  They  propose  a  convention  of  the  state,  to  be 
called  at  a  special  session  of  the  general  assembly,  to 
decide  fundamentally  on  the  course  of  action.  That, 
at  least,  is  consulting  the  people  fairly,  and  giving 
them  a  chance  to  decide  understaudingly.  This  is 
their  resolution: 

"  Resolved,  That  the  danger  of  the  state  and  the 
safety  and  welfare  of  the  people  of  Virginia  call  for 
a  convention,  to  be  assembled  as  soon  as  the  Legis 
lature  can  pass  a  bill  for  that  purpose,  to  determine 
upon  the  whole  question  of  encroachment  by  the  Fe 
deral  Government,  and  by  the  "  Free  Soil"  states 
and  the  people  of  the  north,  on  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  states,  territories  and  districts  of  the 
United  States,  that  it  is  full  time  for  the  state  to  de 
cide  what  will  be  its  sovereign  action  finally,  on  this 
subject ;  and  to  inform  its  c'tizens  and  subjects  whe 
ther  they  will  be  authorized  to  resist,  if  thmy  are  re 
quired  bjf  Federal  Legislation  to  submit  to  the  op 
pression  of  a  majority  iu  Congress,  and  that  a  State 
Convention,  organized  according  to  law,  can  best 
settle  the  rule  of  conduct  for  the  citizen." 

The  Accomac  meeting  reports  its  proceedings  to 
Mr.  Calhoun  ;  and  that  is  right  again.  He  is  the 
chief  of  the  movement,  and  his  adjuncts  should  report 
to  him. 

I  deem  it  most  unfortunate  that  the  General  As- 
eembly  of  Missouri  should  have  adopted  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's  resolutions.  I  am  certain  not  six  members  of 
the  body  had  the  scienter  of  their  origin  and  design  ; 
or  meant  harm  to  the  country  or  myself.  But  that 
is  no  impediment  to  their  evil  effect.  They  are  the 
act  of  the  General  Assembly.  Upon  the  record,  they 
are  the  will  of  the  state.  Abroad,  they  are  the  pledge 
of  the  state  to  back  Mr.  Calhoun  in  his  designs— to 
put  the  state  under  his  lead — and  to  stop  my  oppo 
sition  lo  his  mad  career.  And,  although  I  know  that 
the  event  will  deceive  his  h»pes,  yet  the  mischief 
will  be  done,  in  the  fatal  encouragement  he  will  re 
ceive,  before  another  General  Assembly  can  correct 
the  error. 

1  consider  my  proposition — the  one  with  which  I 


commenced  my  speech — now  made  good;  namely, 
that  the  Resolutions  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
which  1  complain  are  copied  from  those  of  Mr.  Cal 
houn — that  to  understand  their  design,  you  must  un 
derstand  liis  design — and  that,  from  the  words  of  hia 
own  resolution,  and  from  bis  conduct  for  twenty  yeara 
past,  the  subversion  of  the  Union  is  intended.  In  the 
execution  of  this  design  I  cannot  be  an  instrument, 
nor  can  I  believe  that  the  people,  or  the  mass  of  the 
General  Assembly  wish  it;  and  I  deem  it  right  lo 
have  a  full  understanding  with  my  constituents  on 
the  whole  matter. 

I,  therefore,  appeal  from  the  instructions  I  have 
received,  because  they  are  in  conflict  with  instruc 
tions  already  received  and  obeyed — because  they  did 
not  emanate  from  any  known  desire,  or  understood 
will  of  the  people— because  they  contain  unconstitu 
tional  expositions  of  the  Constitution  which  I  am 
sworn  to  support — because  they  require  me  to  pro 
mote  disunion— because  they  pledge  the  state  to  co 
operate  with  other  states  in  eventual  civil  war— be 
cause  they  are  copied  from  resolutions  hatched  for 
great  mischief,  which  I  have  a  right  to  oppose,  and 
did  oppose  in  my  place  of  Senator  in  the  Senate  «f 
the  United  States,  and  which  I  cannot  cease  opposing 
without  personal  disgrace  and  official  dereliction  of 
public  duty — and  because  1  think  it  due  to  the  people 
to  give  them  an  opportunity  to  consider  of  proceed 
ings  so  gravely  affecting  them,  and  on  which  they 
have  notbeen consulted. 

I  appeal  to  the  people — the  whole  body  of  the  peo 
ple.  It  is  a  question  above  party,  and  should  be  kept 
above  it.  1  mean  to  keep  it  there. 

And  now  I  have  a  secret  so  tell,  in  relation  to  these 
resolutions,  which  I  have  guarded  long  enough  I 
marked  their  first  appearance  in  the  General  Assem 
bly,  knew  their  origin  and  design,  and  determined  to 
let  them  go  on.  It  so  happens  that  there  are  a  few- 
citizens  in  this  state,  successors  to  those  who  have 
passed  away,  and  who  are  denominated,  in  the  Acco 
mac  resolutions,  adjuncts  to  Mr.  Calhoun.  The  de 
nomination  is  appropriate.  Adjunct  (English)  is- 
from  ad  and  junctus  (Latin)  and  signifies  joined  to  ; 
which  this  set  of  citizens  seems  to  be,  both  soul  and 
body,  with  respect  to  their  southern  leader. 

These  few  are  in  a  state  of  permanent  conspiracy 
against  me,  either  on  their  own  account,  or  that,  of 
their  "leading  friend  at  the  *o«/A,"  or  both,  and 
hatch  a  perpetual  succession  of  plots  against  me.  To 
go  no  farther  back,  1  refer  to  the  summer  of  1843,  and 
the  plot  on  the  Texas  Annexation  question,  which  I 
will  call  the  jews-barp  plot,  in  consideration  of  the  mu 
sic  which  was  to  be  then  made  upon  that  instrument, 
and  to  discriminate  it  from  others.  That  plot  show 
ed  its  head,  but  it  hid  itself  afterward.  It  failed,  and 
its  contrivers  went  back  into  their  perpetual  state  of 
incubation.  When  the  Calboun  resolutions  were 
moved  in  the  General  Assembly,  and  that  was  at  the 
commencement  of  the  session,  I  saw  that  a  new  plot 
was  batching,  and  determined  to  let  it  quit  the  shell. 
I  knew  that  if  I  gave  hint  of  what  they  were  about 
— if  I  had  communicated  the  tithe  of  what  I  have  said 
to  you  to-day,  it  would  have  stopped  the  proceeding. 
But  that  would  have  done  me  no  good.  It  would 
only  have  postponed  and  changed  ihe  form  of  the 
work.  1  determined  to  let  it  go  on,  and  to  do  no 
thing  to  alarm  the  operators  ;  and  for  that  reason 
wrote  nor  a  word— not  a  word  on  the  subject— to  any 
one  of  the  hundred  members  who  would  have  blown 
the  resolutions  sky  high  if  they  had  known  their  ori 
gin  and  design.  I  did  not  even  answer  a  letter  from 
my  friend  who  sits  there  (Lieut.  Gov.  Price).  The 
resolutions  were  introduced  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  sessiou  ;  they  lay  torpid  until  its  end. 

The  plotters  were  waiting  for  the  signal  from  the 


16 


"leading  friend"— waiting  the  Calhonn  address. 
The  moment  they  got  it,  they  acted,  although  it  was 
too  la'e  for  the  resolutions  to  have  the  effect  of  in 
structions.  They  were  passed  after  Congress  had  ad 
journed,  and  after  it  must  have  been  believed  that  the 
subject  to  which  they  relate  had  been  disposed  of; 
for  it  was  notorious  that  the  territorial  government 
bills  were  in  process  of  enactment,  and  in  fact  they 
only  failed  alter  midnight  on  the  last  night  of  the  ses 
sion,  and  that  on  disagreement  between  the  two 
Houses  ;  and  their  failure,  on  the  3d  of  March,  was 
not  known  at  Jefferson  on  the  7th— the  day  of  passing 
the  resolutions  It  was  too  late  to  pass  the  resolu 
tions  for  the  purpose  of  instructing  me  how  to  vote  at 
Washington. 

It  was  too  late  for  that  ;  bat  was  early  enough  for 
the  summer  campaign  at  home  ;  and,  therefore,  they 
were  passed !  and  now  I  have  them.  I  mean  the  plot 
ters  ;  and  between  them,  and  me,  henceforth  and  for 
ever,  is  a  high  wall  and  a  deep  ditch  !  and  no  commu 
nion,  no  compromise*  no  caucus  with  them  Nor 
does  it  require  any  boldness,  on  my  part,  to  give  them 
defiance.  There  are  only  a  dozen  of  them — a  baker's 
dozen,  perhaps— and  half  of  them  outside  of  the  le 
gislature.  Woe  to  judges,  if  any  such  there  are  in 
this  work  '  The  children  of  Israel  could  not  stand 
the  government  of  judges  ;  nor  can  we. 

Citizens  !  I  have  finished  the  view  which  1  proposed 
to  take  of  the  subject  which  has  induced  my  appeal 
to  the  people  ;  but  there  are  other  matters  upon 
which  my  constituents  desire  to  hear  from  me,  and  in 
which  desire  it  is  right  they  should  be  gratified. 

"  Barnburner."  And  what  did  I  go  to  New  York 
for,  la.t  summer,  but  to  use  my  utmost  exertions  to 
prevent  Mr.  Van  Buren  and  his  friends  from  engag 
ing  in  the  Buffalo  Conventon  1  I  went  there,  that  is 
certain.  My  public  speeches  show  that  1  went  for 
that  object,  and  the  newspapers  in  the  interest  of 
thofe  called  barnburners  all  assailed  me  for  doing  so, 
not  with  billiogsgate  and  as  blackguards,  but  with 
keen  reproaches  for  coining  out  of  my  state,  contrary 
to  the  practice  of  my  life,  to  interfere  in  the  politics 
of  another  state,  and  that  against  ihocC  who  had  al 
ways  been  my  friends. 

My  answer  was,  that  1  came  to  use  the  privilege  of 
an  old  friend— to  give  my  opinion  that  the  separate 
organization  contemplated  was  wrong  in  principle, 
and  would  be  injurious  to  those  engaged  in  it  :  and, 
wbat  was  m  ire,  iijuriou*  to  the  grtat  party  to  which 
they  belonged.  Such  was  the  object  of  my  visit  to 
New  Yoik,  and  such  my  rectption.  The  event  dis 
appointed  my  hopes  and  expectations,  and  1  had  my 
trouble  for  my  paii,s,  and  a  good  deal  of  newspaper 
condemnation  into  th-s  bargain.  All  this  was  public 
and  notorious,  published  m  all  the  newspapers,  and 
known  to  every  body.  There  is  not  a  man  in  Mis 
souri  that  does  not  know  it  And  now,  what  are  we 
to  think  of  the  language  applied  to  me  1  Why,  that 
is  a  most  excellent  thing  fur  me.  It  shows  the  char 
acter  of  the  plotters,  ani  that  they  will  nullify  and 
falsify  public  recorded  hi«t">ry  to  vilify  inc. 

"The  Wjlmot  I'.oviso."  Well!  1  think  it  is  the 
Jefferson  Proviso— the  same  that  Mr.  Jefl'ercon  drew 
Up  for  the  north-western  Territory, in  1784;  which  was 
adopted  in  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  or  1787, 
with  the  unanimous  vcice  of  the  slaveholding  states; 
was  ratified  by  the  Virginia  General  Assembly  the 
10th  of  December,  17a8  ;  which  was  applied  by  the 
CbngreM  of  1820  to  all  the  upper  half  of  Louisiana  ; 
which  was  applied  by  the  Congress  of  1848  to  the 
Oregon  Territory;  which  was  recommended  for  the 
new  Territories  by  the  Missouri  General  Assembly, 
Feb.uarylS,  1847,  and  never  attempted  to  be  con 
demned  until  Friday,  (a,  day  of  omen,)  the  19th  of 


Feb.  1847,  just  four  days  after  the  d«te  of  the  Mis 
souri  recommendations,  when  Mr.  Calb«un  brought 
in  his  resolutions  declaring  it  unconstitutional,  insult 
ing  to  the  states,  and  subversive  to  the  Union.  I 
think  Mr  Jefferson,  and  not  Davy  Wilinot,  was  the 
author  of  this  Proviso,  and  that  it  should  bear  his 
name,  and  not  Davy's. 

With  respect  to  the  character  of  the  proviso,  if  it 
should  be  prescribed  by  Congress  for  any  new  territo 
ry,  1  think  it  will  remain  just  what  it  has  been  for 
sixty  years— a  constitutional  provision,  made  in  pur 
suance  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  that,  being  so  made, 
it  is  binding  upon  all  law-abiding  citizens,  and  that 
its  resistance  by  force  and  arms,  militarily,  would  be. 
treason  against  the  United  States,  and  punishable  by 
death  under  the  laws  of  the  land.  With  respect  to 
the  expediency  of  the  act,  there  is  no  necessity  for  it, 
and  there  are  prudential  reasons  why 'it  should  not 
be  passed.  California  and  New  Mexico  are  now  free 
from  slavery  both  by  law  and  by  fact ;  and  will  for 
ever  remain  free  from  it,  both  by  law  and  in  fact. 
As  a  general  proposition,  unnecessary  laws  ought 
not  to  be  passed  ;  but  if  it  is  passed,  it  is  an  empty 
provision,  having  no  practical  effect  whatever.  To 
make  an  issue  against  it  between  the  north  and  south 
is  unwise,  for  it  is  an  issue  about  nothing,  and  on  the 
part  of  the  south  an  issue  made  for  defeat,  for  Dela 
ware  has  instructed  for  it  ;  and  that  insures  a  majori 
ty  in  the  ?enaie  for  the  proviso,  there  being  already 
a  large  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
structed  for  it. 

But  there  is  a  stronger  reason  to  claim  forbearance. 
This  proviso  is  the  last  card  in  Calhoun's  hand!  his 
last  stake  in  the  slippery  game  which  he  has  been 
playing.  Take  that  last  card  from  him,  and  his  game 
is  up  : — bankruptcy  comes  upon  him — political  bank 
ruptcy — and  he  must  be  driven  to  take  the  act.  He 
will  have  to  haul  down  his  sign — close  his  doors — shut 
up  shop — and  give  in  a  schedule  of  bis  effects  and 
stock  in  trade  ;  and  a  beautiful  schedule  it  will  be. 
Let  us  see  some  items  of  it — a  few,  by  way  of  sample: 

Imprimis:  United  States  Bank  charter  in  1816 — 
opposition  to  it  when  he  joined  Jackson  in  1830— re- 
charier  for  12  years  to  the  Bank  whea  he  turned  a- 
gainst  Jackson — 1834. 

lUm:  Protective  Tariff  and  Cotton  Minimum  in 
1816;  and  Nullification  and  Disunion  for  the  same  in 
1830. 

Item:  General  International  Improvement  by  the 
Federal  Government  in  1823  ;  denial  of  the  whole 
power  afterward;  and  admission  of  half  the  power 
at  the  Memphis  Convention. 

Item  :  Solemn  written  opinion  in  Mr.  Monroe's  ca 
binet  in  favor  of  the  power  of  Congress  to  abolish  sla 
very  in  the  territories,  and  in  favor  of  the  exercise  of 
that  power  over  the  whole  of  Upper  Louisiana  north 
and  west  of  Missouri,  together  with  the  resolutions  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  in  1847,  denying  that 
power  intoto.  J\ota  Btnc  :  The  wri'ten  opinion  is 
lost  or  mislaid,  but  its  existence  can  be  proved,  and 
that  it;  good  both  in  law  and  equity. 

item  :  Opuiio.i  of  Mr.  Monroe's  Cabinet  in  1819 in 
favor  of  giving  away  Texas  when  we  possessed  her. 
and  the  London  abolition  plot  invented  afterward  to 
to  get  up  a  slavery  agitation  for  political  purposes  in 
getting  her  back. 

Jlem  :  All  the  abolition  plots  invented  for  ten  years 
and  charged  upon  Lord  Aberdeen,  the  World's  Con 
vention,  iiiucndiary  petitions,  and  incendiary  com 
munications  through  the  mail 

Jlfiit  :  Tin'  I'iplotnic  correspondence  with  Foreign 
( S.,\  i  ;iunent.-;ou  the  subject  of-lavery  while  Secretary 
of  State  under  (or  over)  Tyler,  and  especially  the 
autograph  letter  of  forty  foolscap  page's  to  toe  King 
of  the  French,  to  indoctrinate  him  into  the  new  and 


17 


sublime  science  of  Negroology. 

Item  :  Speeches  and  resolutions  against  the  con 
duct  of  Great  Britain  in  protecting  and  liberating 
slaves  guilty  of  piracy  and  murder  on  board  Ameri 
can  ships  going  from  one  port  of  the  United  States 
to  another,  and  demands  for  redress  ;  and  subsequent 
contradiction  of  all  such  speeches  and  resolutions  at 
the  Ashburton  treaty. 

Item  :  New  mode  of  amending  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  on  the  subject  of  internal  improve 
ment,  by  making  inland  seas  out  of  a  river  and  three 
states— invented  at  the  Memphis  Convention. 

Item  :  Opposition  to  the  highway  of  nations  be 
tween  St.  Louis  and  San  Francisco,  because  part  of 
it  will  have  to  go  through  free  soil ;  and  besides, 
when  the  Union  is  dissolved  the  road  would  be  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  line. 

Item  :  The  bones  of  3,000  followers  strewed  along 
my  political  path  since  the  commencement  of  nullifi 
cation  and  disunion  in  1830. 

Item  :  The  army  of  political  martyrs  preparing  to 
march  to  the  Southern  Convention,  preceded  by  the 
"  forlorn  hope"  from  Missouri,  and  having  for  its 
banner  the  Accomac  resolutions. 

Drive  him  to  the  schedule,  and  the  country  will 
have  peace  1 

"  My  opinions."  They  are  wanted.  Heretofore 
the  public  acts  of  public  men  have  stood  for  their  opin 
ions  :  it  has  been  only  the  new  men,  unknown  by  their 
acts,  that  have  been  subjected  to  political  cate 
chism.  Thirty  years  almost  1  have  been  in  the  Senate 
and  during  that  time  have  always  been  a  voter,  and 
often  a  speaker  on  this  subject  of  Slavery  ;  and  com 
menced  with  it  in  my  own  State.  I  was  politically 
born  out  of  a  slave  agitation — out  of  the  Missouri 
restriction  controversy  and  have  acted  an  open  part 
on  it  from  the  time  it  began  to  the  present  day. 

My  writings  had  some  influence  on  the  formation 
of  the  constitution  of  this  state.  They  were  pretty 
well  known  then,  though  forgotten  now.  They  con 
tributed  to  keep  off  restriction,  and  to  insert  the 
clause  in  the  constitution  for  the  sanction  of  slavery. 
I  urged  the  putting  it  in  the  constitution  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  giving  security  to  property,  and  pre 
venting  agitation.  I  wanted»peace  from  the  question 
at  home,  and  contributed  to  provide  for  it,  by  con 
tributing  to  put  that  clause  in  the  constitution ;  and 
now  it  is  hard  that  we  should  have  an  agitation  im 
ported,  or  transported  upon  us,  to  harrass  us  about 
slavery,  when  we  have  taken  such  care  to  keep  out 
agitation. 

My  votes  in  Congress  have  been  consistent  with  my 
conduct  at  home— non-interference,  no  agitation — se 
curity  to  property — and  tranquility  to  the  people.  In 
thirty  years  I  have  not  given  a  vote  that  has  been 
complained  of.  I  have  voted  thirty  years,  avoiding 
all  extremes,  and  giving  satisfaction.  The  old  gene 
ration,  and  the  generation  that  has  been  born  during 
that  time,  ought  to  consider  this,  so  far  as  to  let  it 
stand  as  the  evidence  of  my  opinions.  But  it  will  not 
do.  Finding  nothing  in  the  past  to  condemn,  seme 
people  must  go  into  futurity,  to  see  if  any  thing  can 
be  found  there  !  and  even  into  my  bosom,  to  see  if 
any  thing  is  hid  there,  which  can  be  condemned. 

Very  good :  they  shall  know  my  opinions. — 
And  first,  they  may  see  them  in  my  public  acts — 
in  my  proposals  for  the  admission  of  TEXAS  five  years 
ago,  in  which  I  proposed  to  limit  the  western  exten 
sion  of  Slavery  by  longitudinal  line,  I  believe  the  100th 
degree  of  west  longitude— next  in  my  votes  upon  the 
Oregon  bill,  in  which  1  opposed  the  introduction  of 
Slavery  there — and,  again  in  my  letter  to  the  people 
of  Oregon,  in  which  1  declare  myself  to  be  no  pro 
pagandist  of  Slavery. 

These  were  public  acts.    But  you  want  public  de 


clarations  of  personal  ^sentiments ;  very  good  ;  you 
shall  have  them.  My  personal  sentiments,  then,  are 
against  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  against  its  in 
troduction  into  places  in  which  it  does  not  exist.  If 
there  was  no  slavery  in  Missouri  to-day,  I  should  op 
pose  its  coming  in ;  if  there  was  none  in  the  United 
States,  I  should  oppose  its  coming  into  the  United 
States ;  as  there  is  none  in  New-Mexico  or  Calfornia 
1  am  against  sending  it  to  those  territories,  and  could 
not  vote  for  such  a  measure— a  declaration  which  costs 
me  but  little,  the  whole  dispute  now  being  about  the 
abstract  right  of  carrying  slaves  there,  without  the 
exercise  of  the  right. 

No  one  asks  for  the  exercise  of  the  right,  and  can 
not  ask  it  in  the  face  of  the  dogma  which  denies  the 
power  to  grant  it.  States  do  as  they  please.  These 
are  my  principles  ;  and  they  reduce  the  difference  be 
tween  Mr.  Calhoun  and  myself  to  the  difference  be 
tween  refusing  and  not  asking.  And  for  this  the 
Union  is  to  be  subverted  !  Oh  !  metaphysics  !  politi 
cal  metaphysics !  far  better  stick  to  the  innocent  bu 
siness  of  amending  the  constitution  by  putting  three 
states  and  a  river  together  ! 

If  any  one  wishes  to  know  still  more  about  my  prin 
ciples  on  slavery,  I  will  give  him  a  reference  :  he  may 
find  them  in  Tucker's  edition  of  Blackstone's  Com 
mentaries  (appendix  to  the  second  volume),  where  I 
imbibed,  forty-four  years  ago,  when  a  student  at  law, 
and  have  held  fast  to  them  ever  since,  all  the  prin 
ciples  of  slavery  but  the  remedy,  and  the  difficulty  of 
that  is  one  of  the  evils  itself  of  slavery,  and  one  of  the 
arguments  against  one  aet  of  people  putting  it  upon 
another,  and  a  distant  set  of  people,  especially  while 
they  are  lifting  their  imploring  hands  against  it. 

To  finish  this  personal  exposition,  I  have  to  say 
that  my  profession  and  conduct— no  unusual  thing 
with  frail  humanity— do  not  agree.  I  was  born 
to  the  inheritance  of  slaves,  and  have  never  been 
without  them.  I  have  bought  some,  but  only  on 
their  own  entreaty,  and  to  save  them  from  execu 
tion  sales :  I  have  sold  some,  but  only  for  miscon 
duct.  I  have  had  two  taken  from  me  by  the  Abo 
litionists,  and  never  inquired  after  them ;  and  lib 
erated  a  third,  who  would  not  go  with  them.  I 
have  slaves  now  in  Kentucky,  who  were  elevated 
to  the  dignity  of  real  estate,  by  being  removed  from 
Missouri  to  Kentucky  ;  and  will  have  to  descend 
next  fall  to  the  low  degree  of  a  chattel  interest  in 
spite  of  the  laws  of  Kentucky,  when  1  shall  remove 
them  back  to  Missouri.  And  1  have  slaves  in  Wash 
ington  city— perhaps  the  only  member  of  Congress 
who  has  any  there — and  am  not  the  least  afraid  that 
Congress  will  pass  any  law  to  affect  this  property 
either  there  or  here. 

I  have  made  no  slave  speeches  in  Congress,  and 
do  not  mean  to  make  them.  Property  is  timid  ; 
and  slave  property  above  all.  It  is  not  right  to 
disturb  the  quietude  of  the  owner— to  harrass  him 
with  groundless  apprehensions.  It  is  a  private 
wrong  to  disturb  a  single  individual,  by  making 
him  believe,  untruly,  that  his  property  is  insecure. 
It  becomes  a  public  evil  to  disturb  a  whole  com 
munity.  It  creates  a  general  uneasiness,  gener 
ates  animosities,  deranges  business,  and  often  leads 
to  hasty  and  improvident  legislation.  I  have  seen  no 
danger  to  the  slave  property  of  any  state  in  this  Union 
by  the  action  of  Congress  ;  and  cannot  contribute  to 
alarm  the  country  by  engaging  in  discussions  which 
assert  or  imply  danger. 

But  I  have  a  still  higher  reason  for  not  engaging 
in  these  discussions.  We  are  a  Republic — the  heaa 
of  that  form  of  government — and  owe  a  great  exam 
ple  to  a  struggling  and  agonized  world.  All  the 
American  States  of  Spanish  origin,  in  spite  of  the 
difference  of  religion,  language,  manners,  <mstoms4 

2 


have  imitated  our  example  ;  Europe  is  now  attemp 
ting  to  imitate  it. 

Liberty  is  now  struggling  in  ancient  empires,  and 
her  votaries  are  looking  to  us  for  the  exemplification 
of  the  blessings  of  which  she  is  in  search,  and  for  an 
argument  in  favor  of  her  efforts — what  do  they 
see  1  wrangling  and  strife,  and  bitter  denunciations, 
and  threats  of  separation.  They  see  a  quarrel 
about  slavery!  to  them  a  strange  and  incompre 
hensible  cause  of  quarrel.  They  see  slavery  and 
disunion  coupled  in  one  eternal  wrangle.  They 
see  us  almost  in  a  state  of  disorganization— leg 
islation  paralyzed — distant  territories  left  with 
out  government — insult,  violence,  outrage  on  the 
floors  of  Congress — disunion  threatened.  Their  hearts 
are  chilled  at  this  sad  spectacle  ;  their  enemies  re 
joice  at  it,  and  by  every  mail  ship  that  leaves  our 
shores  the  representatives  of, the  crowned  heads  of  Eu 
rope  send  forth  the  record  of  our  debates  to  encour 
age  the  enemies,  and  to  confound  the  friends  ot  free 
dom. 

France— all  parts  of  Italy — even  the  papal  States  ; 
all  parts  of  Germany— even  the  old  and  gloomy  Em 
pire  of  Austria— all,  all  are  struggling  for  liberty,and 
turning  anxious  looks  to  us  for  aid  and  succor,  not  by 
arms,  for  that  they  know  to  be  impossible,  but  for  the 
moral  aid  of  a  grand  example.  They  look  in  vain. 
Our  example  is  against  them ;  and  if  the  present 
struggle  for  liberty  shall  again  miscarry  in  Europe, 
we  may  take  to  ourselves  a  large  share  of  the  blame. 
Once  called  the  model  Republic  by  our  friends,  we 


are  now  called  so  in  derision  by  our  foes ;  and  the 
slavery  discussions  and  dissensions  quoted  as  proofs  of 
the  impracticable  form  of  government  which  we  have 
adopted.  I  cannot  engage  in  such  discussions,  nor  do 
anything  to  depress  the  cause  of  struggling  freedom 
throughout  Europe. 

Nor  can  I  disparage  the  work,  or  abuse  the  gift  of 
our  ancestors.  Never  has  there  appeared  upon  earth 
a  body  of  men  who  left  a  richer  inheritance,  or  a  nob 
ler  example  to  their  posterity.  Wisdom,  modesty, 
decorum,  forbearance,  dignity,  moderation,  pervaded 
all  their  works,  and  characterized  all  their  conduct. 
They  conducted  a  revolution  with  the  order  of  an  old 
established  government;  they  founded  a  new  govern- 
ment  with  the  wisdom  of  ages  ;  they  administered  it 
in  their  day  with  temperance  and  judgment.  They 
left  us  the  admiration  and  the  envy  of  the  friends  of 
freedom  throughout  the  world. 

And  are  we,  their  posterity,  in  the  second  genera 
tion,  to  spoil  this  rich  inheritance— mar  this  noble 
work— discredit  this  great  example— and  throw  the 
weight  of  the  Republic  against  the  friends  of  republic 
anism  in  their  deadly  struggle  1  I  cannot  do  it. — 
Taught  to  admire  the  founders  of  our  government  in 
my  early  youth,  1  reverence  them  now  ;  taught  to 
value  their  work  then,  I  worship  it  now;  a  Senator 
for  thirty  years,  I  cannot  degrade  the  Senate  by  en 
gaging  in  slavery  and  disunion  discussions.  Silence 
such  debate  is  my  prayer ;  and  if  that  cannot  be  done, 
I  silence  myself. 


Troo 


